J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

A  BIOGRAPHY 


J.WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 


A  BIOGRAPHY 


By  AGNES  REPPLIER 


With  Portraits 


BOSTON  AND  NEW  YORK 

HOUGHTON  MIFFLIN  COMPANY 

iTs0  CambriDge 

1919 


COPYRIGHT,   1919,    BY    AGNES   RKFPLII 
ALL   RIGHTS    RESERVED 


341 


LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFO 
SAIVTA  BARBARA 


'A  surgeon  should  be  tender  to  the  sick, 
honourable  to  his  fellow  surgeons,  wise  in 
his  predictions,  chaste,  sober,  pitiful,  not 
covetous  or  extortionate.  Rather  should  he 
take  his  wages  in  moderation,  according  to 
his  work,  and  the  wealth  of  his  patient,  and 
the  issue  of  the  disease,  and  his  own  worth." 

GUY  DE  CHAULIAC 

Grand  Chirurgie,  1363 


CONTENTS 

I.  EARLY  YEARS 1 

II.  THE  VOYAGE  OF  THE  HASSLER      ....  9 

III.  BLOCKLEY  AND  THE  PENITENTIARY      ...  29 

IV.  SURGEON  AND  TROOPER 35 

V.  MILESTONES 47 

VI.  THE  YEARS  THAT  COUNT 64 

VII.  LAST  YEARS  OF  SURGERY 90 

VIII.  A  CRISIS  PAST 139 

IX.  FOUR  BUSY  YEARS 160 

X.  FREEDOM 192 

XI.  THE  GREAT  WAR        . 226 

XII.  THE  END       .      .      . 254 

INDEX  .  277 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

J.  WILLIAM  WHITE Frontispiece 

From  a  photograph  (inscribed  by  the  artist)  of  the  portrait  by 
John  S.  Sargent 

DR.  AGNEW  AT  HIS  CLINIC  :  DR.  WHITE  ASSISTING     .    40 

From  the  painting  by  Thomas  Eakins.  Reproduced  by  the 
courtesy  of  the  University  of  Pennsylvania  from  a  copyright 
photograph  by  the  Chappel  Studio,  Philadelphia 

J.  WILLIAM  WHITE 160 

From  a  photograph 


J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

CHAPTER  I 
EARLY  YEARS 

JAMES  WILLIAM  WHITE  was  born  in  Phila- 
delphia on  the  2d  of  November,  1850.  He  was 
of  English  ancestry,  the  family  dating  back  to  one 
Henry  White,  who  in  1649  left  England,  and  came 
to  Virginia.  Four  generations  of  Henry  White's  de- 
scendants lived  in,  or  near,  Albemarle,  North  Caro- 
lina. One  of  the  fifth  generation,  James  White,  moved 
to  Burlington,  New  Jersey.  His  son,  William  Rose 
White,  married  Mary  Stockton,  a  descendant  of 
Richard  Stockton,  signer  of  the  Declaration  of  In- 
dependence. Their  son,  James  William  White,  senior, 
practised  medicine  for  many  years  in  Philadelphia. 
He  was  a  keen  diagnostician,  much  sought  in  con- 
sultations, and  he  was  also  an  able  man  of  affairs, 
first  president  of  the  S.  S.  White  Dental  Manufactur- 
ing Company,  whose  products  had  as  wide  a  market 
in  Europe  as  in  the  United  States.  His  strong  and 
advanced  opinions  brought  him  both  friends  and 
foes.  A  firm  abolitionist,  he  fought  a  lifelong  and  un- 
yielding battle  against  slavery.  A  broad-minded  phi- 
lanthropist, he  helped  to  found  the  Maternity  Hos- 


2  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D 

pital  at  a  time  when,  as  has  been  well  observed, 
"  the  existence  of  such  an  institution  was  considered 
an  endorsement  and  encouragement  of  vice."  His 
wife,  Mary  Ann  McClaranan,  was  of  New  England 
parentage,  and  ably  seconded  a  line  of  conduct  more 
in  accord  with  the  prevailing  sentiments  of  Massa- 
chusetts than  of  Pennsylvania.  From  both  parents 
their  distinguished  son  inherited  those  sharply  defined 
and  unyielding  traits  of  character,  which,  buttressed 
with  energy,  ability,  and  resolution,  made  him  so 
valuable  a  colleague  and  so  dauntless  an  opponent. 

The  boy  was  educated  hi  the  public  schools  of 
Philadelphia.  He  was  a  quick-tempered,  warm- 
hearted, rough,  impetuous  child,  as  devoted  to  play 
as  if  the  alphabet  had  never  been  invented,  and  to 
reading  as  if  hockey  and  base-ball  were  unknown. 
The  four  beloved  books  which  he  read  and  re-read 
with  ever  renewed  delight  were  the  "Arabian  Nights," 
"Pilgrim's  Progress,"  "Don  Quixote,"  and  "Robin- 
son Crusoe,"  a  heroic  selection,  but  a  natural  one  in 
those  happy  days,  before  a  flood  of  inane  juvenile 
stories  had  become  the  blight  of  the  nursery  and 
school-room.  Certain  chapters  in  these  books  gave 
the  boy  such  intense  pleasure  that  he  confesses  he 
approached  them  at  each  fresh  perusal  "with  secret 
and  exhilarating  excitement."  This  seems  to  me  one 
of  the  most  illuminating  statements  I  have  ever 
heard  upon  the  much  discussed  subject  of  children's 


EARLY  YEARS  3 

reading.  There  is  no  doubt  that  only  the  book  which 
is  read  many  times,  and  which  is  read  many  times 
because  it  is  worth  many  readings,  has  any  place  in  a 
child's  intellectual  or  emotional  life;  and  no  child  who 
has  ever  responded  to  the  stirring  appeal  of  a  great 
masterpiece  has  failed  to  experience  the  "secret  and 
exhilarating  excitement"  with  which  he  returns, 
step  by  step,  cautious  yet  unafraid,  to  the  Valley  of 
Diamonds,  or  the  Castle  of  Giant  Despair,  or  the 
shining  sands  marked  with  the  impress  of  a  savage 
foot. 

When  I  was  young,  all  well-brought-up  little  girls, 
and  doubtless  all  well-brought-up  little  boys,  who 
were  permitted  to  visit  their  playmates,  were  cau- 
tioned by  careful  mothers  that  they  must  on  no 
account  open  a  book.  To  sit  in  a  corner  and  read, 
instead  of  joining  decorously  in  games,  was  held  to 
be  unpardonably  rude.  If  Mrs.  White  gave  this  part- 
ing counsel  to  her  son,  it  was  of  no  avail.  The  temp- 
tation was  too  strong  to  be  resisted.  Little  Bill  would 
even  improvise  a  game  of  hide-and-seek  in  order  that 
he  might  slip  away  from  his  small  cousins  and  com- 
panions, and,  hidden  behind  a  curtain,  or  on  the 
back  stairs,  or  in  a  closet,  snatch  a  brief,  uneasy 
joy  from  some  hitherto  unread  story,  which  he  was 
destined  never  to  finish.  The  quickness  of  his  obser- 
vation was  marred  by  his  extreme  near-sightedness. 
If  Mrs.  Barbauld's  old-fashioned  tale,  "Eyes  and  No 


4  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

Eyes,"  ever  came  his  way,  he  must  have  sympathized 
with  the  little  boy  who  passed  by  all  the  wonderful 
things  which  his  comrade  saw  and  commented  upon. 
When  he  stumbled  and  blundered  about,  it  was  put 
down  to  the  natural  awkwardness  of  boyhood.  It  was 
only  after  he  went  to  school  that  his  fashion  of  hold- 
ing his  book  betrayed  his  imperfect  vision.  Once 
fitted  with  glasses,  his  strong  eyes  bore  heavy  and 
continuous  strain  until  he  died. 

In  one  regard  the  boy's  life  was  a  stormy  one.  A 
tendency  to  quarrel,  and  a  still  more  fatal  readiness 
to  uphold  his  dispute  by  force,  tried  the  patience  of 
his  teachers  beyond  endurance.  He  delighted  in  war- 
fare, and  paid  scant  heed  to  causes  or  to  consequences. 
Again  and  again  they  asked  why  such  a  little  fire- 
eater  should  be  retained  in  the  ranks,  and  again  and 
again  the  child's  truthfulness,  integrity,  and  stead- 
fast application  to  his  studies  pleaded  for  pardon.  If, 
on  a  Monday  morning,  Mrs.  White  was  seen  accom- 
panying her  abashed  son  to  school,  the  neighbours 
said,  "There  goes  Bill  White's  mother  to  make  peace 
with  his  teachers.  She  has  her  hands  full  anyway." 

At  thirteen  the  boy  was  ready  for  the  High  School, 
but  was  held  to  be  too  young,  and  obliged  to  wait  a 
year  for  admittance.  He  was  always  a  close  student, 
partly  because  his  quick  intelligence  detected  some 
interest  even  in  the  routine  of  class-work,  and  partly 
because  all  studies  were  to  him  an  obstacle  to  be 


EARLY  YEARS  5 

overcome,  a  barrier  at  which  he  rode  hard  like  a 
steeple-chaser.  Why  and  how  his  high-school  themes, 
or,  as  they  were  then  humbly  called,  compositions, 
were  preserved  from  the  scrap-basket,  it  is  impossi- 
ble to  say.  Perhaps  his  parents  kept  them,  as  little 
Tom  Macaulay's  parents  kept  their  precious  in- 
fant's hymns,  and  epics,  and  "Epitome  of  Univer- 
sal History."  Perhaps  Dr.  White's  noticeable  and  in- 
explicable distaste  for  destroying  any  scrap  of  paper 
dated  from  his  boyhood,  and  he  himself  cherished 
these  unloved  and  laborious  productions. 

Be  this  as  it  may,  the  compositions  were  found  in- 
tact among  more  important  documents,  very  neatly 
copied,  and  as  correct  in  spelling  as  in  sentiment. 
They  are  like  the  compositions  of  school-boys  all  the 
world  over,  save  that  they  do  not  suggest  the  hope- 
less boredom,  the  slurring  haste,  common  to  such 
tasks,  and  that  they  have  a  refreshing  tendency  to 
abandon  the  abstract  for  the  concrete.  The  lad  starts 
out  to  write  about  "Peace,"  and  having  expressed 
some  stainlessly  virtuous  sentiments  regarding  its 
blessings  and  benefits,  he  branches  joyously  off  to 
occasions  which  imperatively  demand  war.  He  inti- 
mates his  disapproval  of  the  Quaker  attitude,  and 
says  in  redundant  school-boy  language  what  Mr. 
Roosevelt  has  said  in  a  few  vigorous  words,  —  that 
*'a  class  of  professional  non-combatants  is,  in  the 
long  run,  as  hurtful  to  a  community  as  a  class  of 


6  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

professional  wrong-doers."  In  another  paper  he  com- 
ments with  regret  upon  the  preponderance  of  study 
over  athletics  in  the  education  of  boys  (which  shows 
how  long  ago  he  went  to  school),  and  prophesies  that 
a  reign  of  dyspepsia  will  result  from  this  mistaken 
attitude  of  teachers.  Most  characteristic  of  all  is  a 
composition  on  "Justice,"  in  which  he  sweeps  aside 
generalities  to  dwell  feelingly  on  the  case  of  a  con- 
temporary murderer  —  a  murderer  long  forgotten 
by  the  world  —  who  killed  eight  people,  and  real- 
ized only  eighteen  dollars  by  the  job.  This  man  was 
hanged,  which  is  duly  pointed  out  as  a  triumph  of 
justice  (the  boy  entertained  no  sentimental  theories 
on  the  subject  of  capital  punishment);  but  what 
really  absorbs  his  youthful  mind  is  the  disproportion 
between  the  means  and  the  end.  Eight  murders,  and 
eighteen  dollars!  He  is  stunned  by  this  unpractical 
aspect  of  crime. 

When  young  White  left  the  High  School,  his  father 
sought  to  make  his  clever  son  a  chemist;  but  this  the 
lad  opposed  with  all  the  determination  of  his  char- 
acter. He  took  a  year's  course  in  chemistry  with 
Hance  Brothers  and  White;  but  a  chemist  he  reso- 
lutely declined  to  be.  His  heart  was  set  on  medicine, 
and  on  surgery,  as  his  chosen  field  of  medicine.  In 
vain  the  arguments  —  old  as  civilization  —  of  slow 
progress  and  crowded  professions  were  urged  upon 
him.  Peter  the  Great  doubtless  considered  that  the 


EARLY  YEARS  7 

two  lawyers  whom  he  permitted  to  practise  in  his 
empire  overcrowded  it,  and  so  hanged  one  of  them. 
To  his  father's  cautious  counsels,  the  son  had  but 
one  reply:  "There  is  plenty  of  room  where  I  intend 
to  be."  Inevitably  he  carried  his  point,  and  entered 
the  Medical  School  of  the  University  of  Pennsyl- 
vania, a  school  then  situated  at  Ninth  and  Chestnut 
Streets.  Here,  working  con  a/more  and  with  all  his 
might,  he  spent  three  vigorous  years,  and  spent  them 
to  such  good  effect  that  hi  1871  he  received  the  two 
degrees  of  Ph.D.  and  M.D.,  obtaining  a  full  vote  for 
both,  and  standing  at  the  head  of  his  class  after  a 
competitive  examination. 

All  this  time  his  interest  in  athletics  had  kept  pace 
with  his  interest  hi  laboratory  work  and  the  lecture- 
room.  His  superb  health,  which  he  never  spared, 
permitted  him  increasing  physical  and  mental  exer- 
tion. He  could  fill  up  every  hour  of  the  day,  and 
study  half  the  night,  without  fatigue,  and  without 
apparent  strain.  It  was  through  the  friendship  of  his 
preceptor,  Dr.  Horatio  C.  Wood,  always  keenly  in- 
terested in  so  brilliant  a  student,  that  the  young 
physician  received  at  the  outset  of  his  career  an  ap- 
pointment which,  lasting  less  than  twelve  months, 
influenced  him  for  life,  and  was  of  far  greater  ad- 
vantage to  him  than  he  was  then  able  to  under- 
stand. 

Professor  Benjamin  Peirce,  Superintendent  of  the 


8  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

United  States  Coast  Survey,  had  fitted  out  a  small 
steamer,  the  Hassler,  for  scientific  explorations  in 
the  waters  of  the  South  Atlantic.  He  invited  Profes- 
sor Agassiz  to  head  the  expedition,  and  Agassiz,  al- 
though in  failing  health,  eagerly  accepted  the  post. 
Dr.  Thomas  Hill,  former  President  of  Harvard  Col- 
lege, a  man  of  seemingly  limitless  information,  and 
Count  Pourtales,  of  the  Coast  Survey,  accompanied 
him  on  the  voyage.  To  Dr.  White,  then  just  twenty- 
one,  was  offered  a  berth  as  hydrographic  draughts- 
man, and  it  may  be  conceived  with  what  enthusiasm 
he  snatched  this  golden  opportunity.  "Agassiz  says 
he  can  and  will  teach  me  more  comparative  anatomy 
in  a  month  than  I  should  ever  learn  in  a  year  at 
college,"  he  writes  joyously  to  his  father;  adding 
with  a  canniness  which  was  as  natural  to  him  as 
courage:  "The  Professor  is  down  on  the  Darwinian 
theory,  so,  although  I  believe  in  it  at  present,  I  think 
I'll  renounce  it  for  a  year.  He  is  going  to  buy  me  a 
shot-gun,  or  rather  let  me  buy  it,  and  send  him  the 
bill.  Which  is  the  most  expensive  kind?" 

The  last  line  is  illustrative.  There  never  was  a  time 
when  Dr.  White  did  not  stand  ready  to  take  all  that 
life  and  opportunity  had  to  offer;  but  there  never 
was  a  time  when  he  was  not  equally  ready  to  give 
the  best  that  was  in  him  in  return. 


CHAPTER  II 
THE  VOYAGE  OF  THE  HASSLER 

THERE  are  few  things  in  this  life  so  good  as  we 
think  they  are  going  to  be,  or  so  good  as  we 
think  they  have  been.  Our  enjoyment  is  either  an- 
ticipatory or  reminiscent,  because  we  cannot  foresee 
the  disagreeable  possibilities  of  the  future,  and  we 
remember  with  grateful  distinctness  the  pleasures  of 
the  past.  It  is  natural  that  Dr.  White  should  have 
keenly  relished  the  prospect  of  a  most  unusual  voy- 
age, and  that  he  should  have  looked  back  upon  the 
nine  months  on  the  Hassler  as  a  remarkably  and 
exclusively  happy  period  of  his  career.  He  did  enjoy 
it  with  all  the  freshness  of  youth,  and  with  all  the 
appreciation  of  sense  and  intelligence.  But  the  trip 
brought  him,  as  it  brought  more  important  members 
of  the  party,  a  full  measure  of  vexation  and  disap- 
pointment. In  the  first  place,  the  expedition,  which 
was  to  have  started  in  August,  1871,  did  not  get  off 
until  December.  Apparently  it  went  then,  only  be- 
cause the  money  appropriated  for  the  work  would 
have  been  returned  to  the  treasury  if  the  Hassler 
had  not  sailed  within  the  fiscal  year.  Dr.  White  spent 
the  month  of  November  in  Boston,  hoping  every  day 
to  be  off  the  next,  and  fretting  over  the  delay  which 


10  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

eventually  curtailed  the  voyage,  compelling  Agassiz 
to  relinquish  the  Falkland  Islands,  and  the  Rio  Ne- 
gro and  Santa  Cruz  Rivers,  to  his  inextinguishable 
regret.  Moreover,  the  deep-sea  dredging,  from  which 
he  hoped  to  obtain  important  results,  failed  because 
of  defective  apparatus.  The  hauls  from  the  greatest 
depths  were  invariably  lost. 

Mrs.  Agassiz,  who  accompanied  her  husband,  kept, 
under  his  direction,  a  diary,  descriptive  and  scientific, 
which  was  published  after  his  death,  and  made  dull 
reading.  Dr.  Hill  wrote  a  series  of  letters  to  the  "New 
York  Tribune."  Dr.  White,  with  characteristic  self- 
confidence,  invaded,  before  sailing,  the  office  of  the 
"New  York  Herald,"  and  actually  persuaded  the 
managing  editor,  Mr.  Cannery,  not  only  to  accept 
him  as  a  special  correspondent,  but  to  pay  him 
twenty  dollars  a  column,  instead  of  the  modest 
ten  which  was  the  paper's  customary  rate.  These 
"Herald"  letters  became  a  heavy  burden  as  the 
young  physician's  duties  on  the  Hassler  grew  more 
and  more  imperative.  Often  he  had  no  time  to  write, 
and  oftener  still  he  had  nothing  to  write  about.  Al- 
ways he  found  it  hard  to  tell  enough  to  satisfy  the 
paper,  without  telling  more  than  Agassiz  wished  told. 
He  confesses  in  his  diary  that  he  envies  Dr.  Hill  (who 
received  thirty  dollars  a  column  from  the  "Tribune") 
the  ease  and  intentness  with  which  he  scribbled  his 
interminable  pages.  "He  does  not  have  to  consult 


THE  VOYAGE  OF  THE  HASSLER        11 

any  geographical  dictionaries,  encyclopedias,  or  other 
useful  abominations.  He  just  sits  down,  takes  his  port- 
folio on  his  knee,  and  draws  out  of  his  antiquated, 
perverse,  crotchety,  obstinate,  but  well-filled  head  all 
that  he  wants,  and  more  too.  I  have  n't  seen  any  of 
his  letters,  but  I  know  they  are  so  much  better  than 
anything  I  can  write,  that  the  very  thought  dis- 
courages me." 

Nevertheless,  the  correspondence  with  the  "Her- 
ald" was  continued  until  the  end  of  the  voyage.  It 
would  no  more  have  occurred  to  Dr.  White  to  vol- 
untarily relinquish  a  job  he  had  undertaken  to  do 
than  to  voluntarily  relinquish  existence.  The  letters 
—  which  have  been  preserved  —  are  sober,  intelli- 
gent narratives,  written  in  the  forceful,  vigorous 
style  he  retained  through  life,  and  marked,  it  must 
be  confessed,  by  that  reluctance  to  leave  anything 
untold  which  characterized  all  he  ever  wrote.  They 
were  printed  by  the  "Herald"  in  type  so  ruinously 
fine  as  to  suggest  collusion  with  the  oculists  and 
opticians  of  New  York,  and  provided  with  fantas- 
tic and  sensational  headlines,  calculated  to  attract 
readers  who  would  not  have  known  Agassiz  from 
Audubon.  "Millions  of  Skeletons  at  the  Bottom  of 
the  Sea."  "Beautiful  Tempest-Defying  Creatures 
Dancing  on  the  Crests  of  the  Waves."  "Oysters  a 
Foot  in  Diameter."  "Hydroids,  the  Socialists  of  the 
Sea."  This  is  the  way  a  valiant  newspaper  strove  to 


12  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

arouse  the  intellectual  curiosity  of  the  public.  Even 
solid  paragraphs  were  broken  up  to  admit  such  head- 
ings as  "Never  before  seen  by  Human  Eyes."  "The 
Skeletons."  "Perished  by  Thousands."  "Died  a 
Heretic."  Naturally  the  most  apathetic  old  gentle- 
man droning  over  his  newspaper  wondered  a  bit  who 
died  a  heretic,  who  perished  by  thousands,  and  what 
on  earth  the  expedition  was  about. 

It  is  amusing  to  note  that  many  years  later,  Dr. 
White,  addressing  the  Harvard  Club,  dwelt  feelingly 
upon  the  anguish  of  spirit  which  the  "Herald's" 
headlines  had  caused  his  sensitive  youth.  He  had 
aspired  to  be  weighty  and  scientific,  and  the  paper 
had  presented  him  to  its  readers  as  a  second  Jules 
Verne.  All  his  life,  notwithstanding  certain  stormy 
episodes,  he  remained  on  fairly  good  terms  with 
newspapers.  No  man  was  less  inclined  to  the  stupid 
and  vulgar  error  of  censuring  the  press.  No  man  bet- 
ter understood  its  difficulties,  or  recognized  more 
clearly  its  incontestable  merits.  His  dedication  —  a 
year  before  he  died  —  of  the  "Text-Book  of  the  War 
for  Americans"  to  the  press  of  the  United  States, 
proved  that  he  rightly  regarded  our  best  newspapers 
as  intelligent  leaders  of  the  nation's  thought,  and 
upright  guardians  of  the  nation's  honour.  He  winced 
under  the  "Herald's"  sensationalism,  but  he  grasped 
its  motives,  and  forgave. 

Once  launched  on  its  voyage,  the  Hassler  became 


THE  VOYAGE  OF  THE  HASSLER         13 

a  scene  of  incessant  activity,  and  the  hydrographic 
draughtsman  —  a  title  which  might  have  been  roughly 
interpreted  as  man-of -all- work  —  was  kept  busily  em- 
ployed. How  he  ever  found  time  to  do  all  the  jobs 
which  Agassiz  gave  him  to  do,  and  most  of  the  jobs 
which  should  have  been  done  by  older  and  less  stren- 
uous men,  write  the  interminable  letters  to  the 
"Herald,"  keep  up  an  energetic  correspondence  with 
his  family  —  to  say  nothing  of  a  diary  —  and  study 
French  and  Spanish  with  zest,  remains  a  mystery. 
His  days  always  seemed  to  hold  more  than  the  twen- 
ty-four hours  allotted  to  ordinary  mortals. 

Every  calm  morning,  Agassiz  gave  a  lecture  on 
deck,  using  a  rubber  blanket  stretched  on  four  sticks 
as  a  blackboard.  These  lectures  Dr.  White  copied 
"smoothly,"  and  he  also  undertook,  before  they  had 
been  out  a  week,  to  copy  the  log.  When  the  ship  was 
quarantined  in  Montevideo  Harbour,  he  had  himself 
awakened  every  three  hours  in  the  night,  to  make  his 
observations  on  surface  water,  Agassiz  being  eager  to 
test  the  influence  of  winds  and  tides  upon  the  admix- 
ture of  fresh  water  in  the  bay.  The  incessant  dredg- 
ings  kept  him  hard  at  work,  examining  the  specimens, 
and  dropping  everything  of  value  into  alcohol.  Three 
thousand  five  hundred  gallons  of  alcohol  were  used 
during  the  voyage.  Agassiz's  curiosity  was  so  in- 
satiable, and  his  delight  over  a  good  haul  was  so 
radiant,  that  his  young  assistant  could  not  forbear 


14  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

a  joke  (a  variant  of  Cleopatra's  famous  trick),  and 
slipped  one  day  a  polished  chicken  bone  into  the 
dredging  net  before  it  was  cast.  Up  in  time  came  the 
net,  and  up  came  the  bone.  A  sailor  grasped  it,  and 
carried  it  to  Agassiz,  who  rejected  the  strange  speci- 
men with  a  smile,  divining  the  jest,  and  asking  no 
questions. 

Sunday  brought  scant  respite  from  labour.  Dr. 
White  writes  to  his  father  that  Agassiz  was  "very 
religious,"  but  would  dredge  seven  days  in  the  week, 
deeming  it  a  work  of  necessity,  and  expected  others 
to  do  the  same.  An  average  Sunday  was  spent  in 
dredging  until  noon,  photographing  the  specimens 
until  dusk,  and  listening  in  the  evening  to  a  lecture 
on  "Positivism"  from  the  omniscient  Dr.  Hill,  whose 
custom  it  was  to  interpret  metaphysics  in  the  terms 
of  a  mathematician,  somewhat  to  the  disgust  of 
Agassiz,  who  hated  mathematics,  and  who  was  nat- 
urally disposed  to  disagree  with  what  he  did  not 
understand. 

It  must  be  remembered  that  Dr.  White  was  not  a 
marine  biologist,  and  that  he  had  none  of  the  noble 
but  somewhat  overwhelming  enthusiasm  common  to 
this  department  of  science.  He  threw  his  whole  soul 
into  his  work  because  slackness  was  impossible  to 
his  nature,  and  he  tried  to  share  Agassiz's  wild  delight 
when  —  off  the  coast  of  Patagonia  —  they  caught 
some  uncommonly  ugly  little  fishes  which  could  swim 


THE  VOYAGE  OF  THE  HASSLER        i5 

head  first  or  tail  first,  "as  a  matter  of  indifference." 
"There  was  once  a  folio  volume  written  on  a  single 
imperfect  specimen  of  these  fish,"  he  reports  proudly, 
"and  they  are  still  very  rare;  so  the  Professor's 
pleasure  is  unbounded."  It  was  another  red-letter 
day  which  showed  them  their  first  steamer-duck  pad- 
dling expertly  on  the  rough  water,  and  very  often 
the  fossils  secured  were  of  inestimable  value.  When 
in  ill-luck,  their  ropes  broke,  their  hauls  were  lost, 
the  bathometer  let  down  for  deep-sea  sounding  never 
came  up  again,  and  the  result  of  four  hours'  dredg- 
ing in  six  hundred  and  eighty  fathoms  of  water 
in  Panama  Bay  was  "a  few  worms  and  some  blue 
mud."  If  there  was  an  element  of  monotony  in  their 
labour,  there  was  a  glorious  diversity  in  its  reward. 

Photographing  the  specimens  was  every  whit  as 
difficult  as  securing  them.  The  art  of  photography 
was  then,  if  not  in  its  infancy,  at  least  in  its  early 
and  untrammelled  youth.  Dr.  White  was  not  an 
expert  at  the  work,  but  Dr.  Hill  gradually  resigned 
it  into  his  hands,  hating  its  messiness,  and  heart- 
broken over  its  results.  To  photograph  live  Ascidians 
in  a  basin  of  water  on  the  heaving  deck  of  a  small 
ship  would  be  no  facile  task  to-day;  but  with  the 
imperfect  apparatus  of  1872,  wet  plates,  time  ex- 
posure, and  a  persevering  but  inexperienced  photog- 
rapher, the  percentage  of  failures  was  ruinous. 
Nevertheless,  Dr.  White  went  steadily  on  with  this 


16  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

unloved  task  until  he  might  be  said  to  have  con- 
quered it.  Twelve  hours  out  of  the  twenty-four  were 
sometimes  consumed  taking  the  photographs,  de- 
veloping them,  and  packing  them  away.  At  Rio  de 
Janeiro  he  carried  his  negatives  to  the  laboratory  of 
Signer  Leuzinger,  where  Conditions  were  exception- 
ally good,  and  worked  there  in  the  heavy  heat  for 
ten  hours,  without  intermission,  and  without  food. 
It  was  a  heroic  test  of  endurance.  Zealotry  could 
have  done  no  more. 

Besides  photographing  specimens,  it  was  Dr. 
White's  more  difficult  duty  to  take  pictures  of  the 
coast,  and  of  all  objects  of  beauty  and  interest  which 
might  be  desirable  for  stereopticon  slides.  This  in- 
volved such  diverting  experiences  that  I  quote  a  long 
extract  from  the  diary,  partly  because  it  is  really 
funny,  and  partly  because  it  might  have  been  written 
at  fifty  instead  of  at  twenty-one.  Those  who  knew 
Dr.  White  only  in  later  life  can  recognize  the  familiar 
turns  of  speech,  the  ease  and  sharpness  of  expression. 

"At  Sea.  Off  the  Island  of  Chiloe.  Sunday,  April 
7th,  1872.  This  morning  I  had  an  instance  of  what  has 
been  one  of  my  great  troubles  hi  photography,  —  the 
fact  that  it  is  impossible  to  make  some  people  under- 
stand what  can  and  what  can't  be  done  with  a  camera. 
It  would  be  amusing  if  it  were  not  annoying.  I  wak- 
ened between  six  and  seven  o'clock,  looked  out  of  my 
port-hole,  saw  that  we  were  at  some  distance  from 


THE  VOYAGE  OF  THE  HASSLER         17 

shore,  pulled  off  a  leaf  from  my  calendar,  disclosing 

*  Domingo,  April  7th,'  said  a  word  of  good  morning  to 
you  all  by  looking  over  the  photographic  album,  and 
then  settled  myself  comfortably  to  read  a  new  novel 
(new  when  we  started)  which  Mrs.  Agassiz  had  re- 
quested me  to  pronounce  upon  before  beginning  it 
herself. 

"I  hadn't  enjoyed  this  very  long  when  my  cur- 
tains were  pulled  aside,  and  the  Professor's  face  was 
visible.  He  made  a  movement  to  retire,  saying  some- 
thing about  having  thought  that  *  perhaps  the  pho- 
tographic apparatus  was  ready.'  I  told  him  that 
it  would  be  ready  in  exactly  ten  minutes  if  it  were 
necessary,  but  that  I  did  n't  believe  there  was  any- 
thing to  photograph.  'Oh,  yes,  something  of  the 
greatest  interest,  if  it  would  not  be  too  much  trouble.' 
I  turned  out,  dressed,  and  was  on  deck  with  my 
camera  and  a  coated  and  sensitized  plate  in  about 
the  time  I  mentioned.  Then  I  found  that  the  nearest 
objects  were  hills  several  miles  off,  which  hills  had, 
on  the  focusing  glass,  an  elevation  of  about  the 
tenth  of  an  inch;  and  that  the  intensely  interesting 

*  something'  consisted  of  white  spots  on  those  hills, 
barely  discernible  without  the  aid  of  the  glass.  I  might 
as  well  have  been  called  upon  to  photograph  a  fly- 
speck  on  Girard  College  from  the  State  House  steeple. 

"I  did  n't  say  much.  The  old  gentleman  had  been 
greatly  disappointed  at  our  not  going  up  to  the 


18  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

island,  as  he  thereby  missed  an  opportunity  of  hav- 
ing a  slap  at  Darwin  on  the  Glacial  Theory,  and  I 
did  n't  want  to  worry  him  any  more.  So  I  went 
through  the  motions,  exposed  three  plates,  and  told 
him  I  did  n't  believe  I  had  secured  what  he  wanted, 
but  that  I  had  done  all  that  was  possible.  I  then 
stowed  away  the  apparatus.  In  fifteen  minutes  he 
saw  a  volcanic  range  on  the  other  side,  and  at  about 
twice  the  distance,  of  which  he  wanted  a  picture.  I 
unpacked,  repeated  the  process,  made  a  couple  of 
plates  on  which  the  hills  would  have  to  be  looked  for 
with  a  compound  microscope,  and  stowed  away  the 
things.  In  half  an  hour  he  discovered  two  peaks, 
snow-covered,  and  almost  exactly  the  same  colour  as 
the  sky  behind  them,  so  that  it  was  difficult  to  make 
out  their  line  of  demarcation,  even  with  strong 
glasses.  I  told  him  they  would  both  take  the  same 
colour,  that  the  mountains  would  n't  show,  and  that, 
in  addition,  the  vessel  was  beginning  to  make  con- 
siderable motion.  He  did  n't  seem  persuaded,  how- 
ever, that  it  was  impossible,  so  I  again  unpacked, 
and  demonstrated  it  to  him.  I  caught  all  the  ripples 
on  the  waves  without  a  sign  of  the  peaks.  Then  I 
packed  up,  and  registered  a  vow  —  which  I  kept  — 
not  to  take  the  things  out  again  unless  we  were  in 
smooth  water,  within  a  hundred  yards  of  shore." 

In  what  odd  moments  of  his  crowded  day,  Dr. 
White  snatched  the  leisure  to  write  the  diary  which 


THE  VOYAGE  OF  THE  HASSLER        19 

he  kept  for  his  family,  as  well  as  letters  of  amazing 
length  and  minuteness,  no  one  will  ever  know.  There 
is  no  sign  of  haste  or  scrimping  in  his  voluminous 
pages.  He  tells  his  mother  that  the  washerwoman  at 
St.  Thomas  starched  his  handkerchiefs  and  towels, 
and  left  his  collars  and  cuffs  limp.  He  tells  his  grand- 
mother everything  he  had  to  eat  at  a  dinner  party  at 
Talcahuano,  because  that  was  what  she  liked  best  to 
hear.  If,  at  the  close  of  the  trip,  he  omits  the  menu 
of  a  dinner  given  by  Mr.  Leland  Stanford,  then  Gov- 
ernor of  California,  he  pleads  hi  excuse  that  the  en- 
tertainment lasted  from  six  to  nine,  and  that  he  was 
too  torpid  when  he  left  the  table  to  remember  any- 
thing about  it.  He  makes  careful  notes  throughout 
the  voyage  of  all  that  might  interest  his  little  brother, 
Louis,  then  six  years  old.  He  writes  to  this  child 
about  the  island  of  Juan  Fernandez  and  Alexander 
Selkirk;  and  about  a  big  flying  fish  which  leaped  with 
such  violence  to  the  deck  of  the  Hassler  that  it 
knocked  over  a  cabin  boy;  and  about  the  trained 
canaries  he  saw  at  Rio  de  Janeiro,  which  obstinately 
refused  to  tell  his  fortune,  though  they  told  the  for- 
tunes of  the  Rio  de  Janeirans  all  day  long.  He  gives 
him  the  kind  of  good  advice  which  a  little  boy  rejects 
from  his  parents,  but  receives  docilely  from  a  big 
brother.  Louis  is  not  to  fight  for  the  sake  of  fighting. 
"If  the  other  boy  is  smaller  than  you  are,  it  is  a 
mean  thing  to  do,  and  if  he  is  bigger,  he  might  make 


20  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

you  wish  you  had  n't.*'  The  whole  duty  of  little  boy- 
hood is  compressed  into  this  one  golden  sentence:  "I 
want  you  to  be  a  good  boy,  and  mind  father  and 
mother  and  grandmother,  and  keep  your  feet  dry, 
and  keep  off  the  car-tracks,  and  not  eat  pie-crust  or 
pork." 

In  his  clamorous  demand  for  home  letters,  Dr. 
White  does  not  exempt  even  the  six-year-old.  It 
appears  that  Louis  can  write  a  little;  therefore  he 
should  write,  though  the  forgiving  brother  makes 
allowance  for  his  ineptitude,  and  answers  an  unsent 
baby  scrawl  in  this  really  charming  fashion. 

DEAR  Louis: 

Although  I  have  n't  yet  received  that  letter  which 
Mother  told  me  you  had  written,  I  thought  I  had 
better  answer  it  just  the  same  as  if  I  had  got  it.  I 
guess  I  know  what  was  in  it.  You  told  me  how  you 
and  Waltie  played,  and  how  Maltie  —  not  Waltie  — 
had  fits,  and  how  you  were  a  bad  boy  sometimes, 
and  a  good  boy  nearly  always,  and  how  Grand- 
mother fed  the  pigeons,  and  the  cats,  and  the  rats, 
and  everything  else  that  would  eat,  and  how  much 
money  you  got  when  you  were  sick,  and  how  you 
dirtied  your  new  suit,  and  how  you  ran  to  fires, 
played  hi  the  mud,  rode  with  the  milkman,  plagued 
Grandmother,  teased  Rosie,  worried  Mother,  and 
behaved  yourself  when  Father  was  around.  If  you 


THE  VOYAGE  OP  THE  HASSLER        21 

did  n't  write  all  this,  I  am  sure  you  might  have  done 
so  without  telling  a  great  many  stories. 

One  fact  is  evidenced  by  the  Hassler  diary.  It  is 
never  divulged,  but  may  be  read  between  every  line. 
The  diarist  is  horribly  homesick.  This  is  his  first 
journey,  and  the  familiar  scenes  and  figures  he  has 
left  tug  at  his  heart-strings.  He  is  maddened  by  the 
irregularity  of  the  South  American  mails,  and  ap- 
pears to  have  spent  hours  at  Rio  de  Janeiro  trying 
to  worry  the  hot  and  exasperated  post-office  clerks 
into  giving  him  letters  which  were  not  there  to  give. 
When  one  does  come,  it  has  two  fifteen-cent  stamps 
on  it,  and  he  has  to  pay  twenty-four  cents  more;  but, 
although  habitually  careful  of  money,  he  declares 
joyfully  that  it  is  worth  fifty  dollars.  Later  on,  he 
records  without  a  tremor  that  the  Chilean  Govern- 
ment asks  twenty-five  cents  for  every  letter  which 
passes  through  its  post-office,  and  that  his  are  always 
double  weight.  Whenever  the  ship's  provisions  run 
low,  his  homesickness  is  augmented  by  the  cravings 
of  his  youthful  appetite  for  the  good  Philadelphia 
fare,  so  long  untasted,  so  ardently  recalled.  For  a 
week  in  Otter  Bay,  scientists  and  sailors  were  alike 
reduced  to  pork  and  beans,  —  pork  and  beans  for 
breakfast,  dinner,  and  supper.  At  this  period  the 
young  doctor's  letters  resemble  nothing  so  much  as 
the  "Homesick  Glutton's  Dream."  In  vain  he  tries 


22  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

to  solace  a  free  and  hungry  hour  with  "Aurora 
Leigh."  His  soul  rejects  this  fare  as  unmistakably  as 
his  stomach  rejects  the  pork  and  beans.  In  vain  Mrs. 
Agassiz  recommends  Browning's  "Dramatic  Poems." 
"I  don't  think  much  of  them,"  is  his  uncritical,  but 
not  unnatural,  verdict.  The  Hassler  library  seems 
to  have  been  a  somewhat  haphazard  collection  of 
books,  and  Dr.  White  —  a  swift  and  omnivorous 
reader  —  skimmed  over  its  fiction  in  the  first  few 
weeks,  tossed  aside  its  poetry,  lingered  appreciatively 
over  Dr.  Holmes's  "Autocrat,"  and  Macaulay's 
"Essays,"  and  finally  settled  down  to  "Gray's 
Anatomy,'*  and  a  Spanish  grammar.  He  knew  what 
promise  they  held. 

The  grammar,  indeed,  bore  fruit  a  hundredfold, 
for,  whenever  the  Hassler  was  in  port,  its  earnest 
student  found  himself  fit  for  conversation,  lively  if 
limited,  with  all  the  pretty  girls  he  met.  He  never 
suffered  his  courage  to  be  daunted  by  an  imperfect 
vocabulary;  but  eked  out  his  Spanish  with  French, 
and  his  French  with  English,  and  his  English  with 
the  universal  language  of  youth;  making  himself 
invariably  understood,  and  enjoying  the  abundant 
hospitality  of  the  South.  His  pleasure  in  being  on 
shore  was  just  as  keen,  whether  he  were  climbing  a 
mountain  peak  at  Tijucas,  or  eating  a  highly  civilized 
dinner  at  Talcahuano,  or  listening  to  the  chanting  of 
a  tobacco-begging  Fuegian  chief,  or  hunting  iguanas 


THE  VOYAGE  OF  THE  HASSLER        23 

for  Agassiz  on  Charles  Island,  or  shooting,  or  fishing, 
or  collecting  butterflies,  or  photographing  a  glacier. 
"Agassiz  knows  all  about  fishes,  except  the  way  to 
catch  them,"  is  a  record  in  the  diary.  "He  gives 
directions  concerning  hooks,  and  bait,  and  nets,  and 
drawing  seines,  which  are  listened  to  respectfully, 
but  never  followed." 

At  Panama,  Dr.  White  accompanied  Agassiz  on 
a  specimen-collecting  expedition  which  lasted  three 
days.  They  went  by  rail  to  San  Pablo,  and  the  diary 
gives  a  minute  account  of  the  trip,  dwelling  especially 
on  the  hospitality  of  the  San  Pablo  station-master, 
a  Mr.  Lesley  from  Bangor,  Maine,  and  a  vastly 
important  official.  This  young  man  had  married  a 
school-teacher  from  Belfast,  Maine,  and  had  made 
her  a  home  in  the  wilderness.  Their  shining  house 
and  neat  garden  were  like  a  bit  of  New  England 
transferred  to  the  Isthmus.  Mrs.  Lesley's  good  cook- 
ing, her  raised  biscuits  and  excellent  coffee,  are 
feelingly  described.  A  cribbage  board  and  a  five- 
months-old  baby  complete  the  picture,  which  is 
bright  with  comfort  and  contentment.  Yet  at  the 
foot  of  the  pretty  garden  flowed  the  Chagres  River, 
with  alligators  basking  in  the  mud;  and  before  the 
front  door  stretched  a  tropical  forest,  full  of  ana- 
condas, and  wild  hogs,  and  tarantulas,  and  vampire 
bats,  —  evil  neighbours  for  the  little  household.  The 
snakes  did  sometimes  eat  her  young  chickens,  Mrs. 


24  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

Lesley  confessed  ruefully,  but  had  no  other  word  of 
dissatisfaction  with  her  lonely  and  perilous  life. 

Throughout  the  nine  months'  voyage,  Dr.  White 
remained  on  cordial  terms  with  all  his  associates.  If 
he  were  sometimes  irritated  by  Dr.  Hill's  dogmatism, 
he  respected  his  wide  and  accurate  knowledge.  Count 
Pourtales  and  Dr.  Steindachner  he  liked.  Captain 
Johnson  he  pronounced  a  "good  sailor,  an  honest 
gentleman,  and  a  kind  friend."  To  Mrs.  Johnson 
and  to  Mrs.  Agassiz  he  became  increasingly  attached, 
finding  that  their  presence  on  the  Hassler  added 
materially  to  his  pleasure  and  well-being.  Mrs. 
Agassiz  he  commended  strongly,  because  she  was  a 
lady  without  nerves,  who  did  not  scream  when  in- 
cidents of  a  mildly  terrifying  order  disturbed  the 
usual  tranquillity.  Of  Agassiz  he  has  given  us,  both 
in  his  diary  and  in  an  admirable  paper  written  after 
the  Professor's  death,  a  consistently  charming  and 
sympathetic  picture.  He  can  find  no  words  keen 
enough  to  describe  this  great  scientist's  noble  de- 
mocracy, —  which  was  like  the  democracy  of  Scott, 
whom  men  called  a  feudalist,  —  his  kindness,  his  fluent 
English,  the  simplicity  and  readiness  with  which  he 
imparted  his  knowledge  (to  those  who  sought  it  only), 
his  noble  generosity  and  wise  economy.  "Agassiz,"  he 
wrote,  "is  just  as  free  from  any  pretence  or  assump- 
tion of  superiority  as  if  he  were  a  cabin  boy." 

Toward  the  close  of  the  voyage,  some  one  pro- 


THE  VOYAGE  OF  THE  HASSLER        25 

posed  to  teach  the  Professor  the  beguiling  and  irritat- 
ing game  of  solitaire.  Agassiz,  who  had  never  touched 
a  card  in  his  life,  fell  a  victim  to  the  spell.  "He  spent 
hours  glued  to  the  cabin  table,  dealing  and  sorting 
the  cards,  ejaculating  in  three  or  four  languages,  and 
becoming  as  much  excited  over  the  turns  as  over  a 
new  tadpole."  From  solitaire  —  an  easy  descent  to 
Avernus  —  Agassiz  fell  to  playing  poker  for  gun- 
wads;  and  Heaven  knows  what  further  temptations 
lay  in  wait  for  this  straight-living  scientific  gentle- 
man, if  the  harbour  of  San  Francisco  had  not  put  an 
end  to  the  sport.  The  last  record  made  of  him  in  the 
diary  is  a  testimony  to  his  generous  good-nature. 
Tired  and  ill,  he  consented  to  give  a  lecture  at  the 
Sacramento  Literary  Institute,  and  his  gratified 
audience  presented  him  with  a  gold-headed  stick. 
The  Hassler  reached  San  Francisco  on  the  24th  of 
August,  1872.  Fifteen  months  later,  Agassiz  died. 

One  eventful  dispute  roughened  the  smooth  friend- 
liness of  the  expedition,  and  lent  —  to  Dr.  White  at 
least  —  an  added  interest  in  the  trip.  It  was  no  part 
of  his  duty  to  look  after  the  Hassler's  sick.  Dr.  Pit- 
kin  was  the  ship's  surgeon.  But  Dr.  Pitkin  was 
sometimes  ill  himself,  and,  when  this  happened, 
Dr.  White  dosed  the  crew,  and  mended  their  broken 
heads.  Their  manifest  preference  for  his  services  was 
due  probably  to  his  friendliness,  to  his  open  and  easy 
manner,  and  to  the  confidence  which  his  abrupt 


26  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

decisiveness  seldom  failed  to  inspire.  The  boatswain 
told  him  that  the  sailors  waited  their  chance  to  con- 
sult him;  and,  as  he  had  himself  no  great  belief  in 
Dr.  Pitkin's  remedies,  this  seemed  to  him  a  sensible 
precaution  on  the  sailors'  part.  Dr.  Pitkin  thought 
otherwise;  and  the  disagreement  between  the  two 
physicians  was  brought  to  a  head  when  Paymaster 
Dee,  hunting  for  shells  on  the  wet  sands  of  Mag- 
dalena  Bay,  came  back  with  his  feet  and  legs  badly 
blistered  by  sunburn.  Dr.  Pitkin  applied  glycerine 
and  carbolic  acid.  Dr.  White  urged  the  use  of  phenol. 
Dr.  Pitkin  scouted  phenol.  Dr.  White  contemned  in 
forceful  language  glycerine  and  carbolic  acid.  The 
contest  reminds  us  of  the  ever  memorable  battle 
waged  by  Dr.  Benjamin  Rush,  in  the  Yellow  Fever 
summer  of  1793,  in  behalf  of  mercury  and  jalap, 
against  bark  and  wine.  Finally  the  contestants 
agreed  upon  a  compromise,  or  rather  upon  an  experi- 
ment. Each  took  possession  of  one  of  the  paymaster's 
legs,  and  treated  it  in  his  own  fashion,  the  patient 
acquiescing  because  he  was  not  consulted.  The  result 
was  a  triumph  for  Dr.  WTiite.  In  twenty-four  hours 
the  phenol  leg  was  healed,  while  the  glycerine  leg 
remained  swollen  and  inflamed.  Whether  the  pay- 
master then  decided  which  treatment  he  preferred, 
or  whether  Dr.  Pitkin  continued  to  have  his  own 
way  with  his  appointed  leg,  the  diary  does  not  say. 
In  San  Francisco  came  the  final  separation.  Dr. 


THE  VOYAGE  OF  THE  HASSLER        27 

White  parted  from  friends  whom  he  had  learned  to 
value,  and  made  his  own  way  home.  With  his  cus- 
tomary good  fortune,  he  reached  Salt  Lake  City  at 
the  time  of  a  great  Mormon  conference,  and  heard 
Brigham  Young  and  other  eminent  saints  preach  to 
huge  congregations.  The  prophet  was  authoritative, 
censorious,  omniscient.  He  protested  against  his  fol- 
lowers seeking  legal  or  medical  advice,  instead  of 
asking  counsel  of  those  who  were  divinely  appointed 
to  direct  them.  "Lawyers,"  he  said,  "are  very  good 
in  their  place,  but  I've  never  been  able  to  discover 
where  the  devil  their  place  is,  unless  it's  in  Hell." 
Doctors  were  little  more  in  favour.  Young  vehe- 
mently reproached  his  female  flock  for  their  obstinacy 
in  employing  obstetricians,  assuring  them  that  they 
and  their  babies  would  be  just  as  well  off  if  they 
would  dispense  entirely  with  medical  service.  He 
gave  the  offending  ladies  a  great  many  sound  and 
intimate  exhortations  on  the  subject  of  their  health. 
He  inveighed  against  the  extravagance  and  immod- 
esty of  their  dress,  declaring  he  could  see  their  garters 
when  they  walked.  (Can  it  be  possible  that  these  dis- 
ciplined wives  wore  tilters!)  He  accused  the  men  of 
withholding  their  tithes.  And  he  clamoured  furiously 
for  money. 

The  robust  sanctimoniousness  of  Salt  Lake  City 
was  evidenced  in  the  petty  details  of  life.  Dr.  White, 
staring  at  the  strange  medley  of  stuff  in  a  shop  win- 


28  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

dow,  heard  the  shopman  urging  a  customer  to  buy  a 
fifty-cent  shell,  on  which  was  engraved  the  Lord's 
Prayer.  "It  will  be  a  moral  power  in  your  family," 
he  said  unctuously.  "Your  children  will  be  eager  to 
learn  from  it.  And  you  know"  (patronizingly)  "it 
really  is  a  beautiful  prayer." 

We  cannot  overestimate  the  value  of  a  nine  months' 
voyage  with  distinguished  associates  to  a  man  of  Dr. 
White's  deeply  impressionable  mind.  The  scientific 
knowledge  he  acquired  counted  for  much.  The 
glimpses  of  Latin  civilization,  broadening  as  they  did 
the  strictly  local  standards  of  the  home-bred  youth, 
counted  for  more.  The  daily  intercourse  with  scholars 
counted  for  most  of  all.  If,  throughout  his  life,  Dr. 
Wftiite  loved  success,  he  had  also  the  finer  qualities 
which  enabled  him  to  revere  achievement.  His  per- 
sonal ambitions  remained  unchanged;  but  he  under- 
stood and  appreciated  the  higher  aspirations  of  men 
who  pursue  truth  for  truth's  sake,  expecting  no  com- 
mon rewards,  and  receiving  none.  This  is  illustrated 
by  a  page  of  the  diary  in  which  he  notes  down  the  fact 
that  Agassiz's  salary  at  Harvard  was  for  sixteen  years 
$1500;  that  it  never  rose  above  $3500;  and  that  he 
had  working  under  him  twenty-five  assistants,  some 
of  them  men  of  fair  scientific  attainments,  whose 
aggregate  salaries  came  to  $14,000,  an  average  of 
$560.  "Methinks,"  the  young  physician  comments 
dryly,  "that  science  is  not  my  vocation." 


CHAPTER  III 
BLOCKLEY  AND  THE  PENITENTIARY 

ABSORPTION  in  the  present  never  meant  for 
Dr.  White  indifference  to  the  future.  He  knew 
very  well  what  a  hard  climb  lay  before  him,  and 
how  much  depended  on  the  start.  He  knew  also  the 
avenues  to  advancement,  and  who  controlled  the 
right  of  way.  While  yet  on  board  the  Hassler,  we 
find  him  making  strenuous  efforts  to  obtain  an  ap- 
pointment as  resident  physician  in  the  Philadelphia 
Hospital  at  Blockley.  This  post  he  received  imme- 
diately after  his  return,  and  held  for  a  year,  resigning 
it  in  1873  for  the  more  important  and  far  more  inter- 
esting position  of  resident  physician  in  the  Eastern 
Penitentiary.  He  continued,  however,  to  visit  Block- 
ley,  and  for  three  years  laboured  in  this  double  field, 
acquiring  a  wide  experience  of  men  and  things,  of 
pauperism  and  criminology,  of  trustees  and  council- 
men,  of  disease  and  death.  His  road  was  not  an  easy 
one,  and  was  made  no  easier  by  the  breadth  of  his 
views,  the  quickness  of  his  temper,  and  the  unyielding 
character  of  his  professional  conscience.  The  Board 
of  Inspectors  of  the  Penitentiary  was  a  conservative 
body,  and  its  members  were  not  in  the  habit  of  hav- 
ing their  duties  expounded  to  them  by  an  impetuous, 


30  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

impatient,  and  singularly  clear-headed  young  doctor. 
They  did  not  like  it,  and  Dr.  White  did  not  like 
indifference  and  distrust.  His  connection  with  the 
prison  might  have  been  abruptly  terminated,  and 
his  career  injured,  had  it  not  been  for  the  president 
of  the  Board,  Richard  Vaux,  formerly  Mayor  of 
Philadelphia,  and  the  treasurer,  John  M.  Maris. 
These  two  men  gave  him  their  steadfast  support.  Mr. 
Vaux  was  himself  an  ultra  conservative,  and  many 
of  the  resident's  views  were  distasteful  to  him;  but, 
being  an  able  man,  he  liked  ability,  and,  being  a  fear- 
less man,  he  liked  fearlessness.  If  he  did  not  believe 
in  Dr.  White's  opinions,  he  believed  sincerely  and 
wisely  in  Dr.  WHbite;  and  men,  not  systems,  counted 
in  his  scale. 

There  are  few  records  of  these  strenuous  years,  but 
there  is  a  startling  reminder  of  them  in  a  story 
written  long  afterwards  by  Dr.  White,  and  entitled 
"Some  Terminal  Episodes  hi  the  History  of  a  Crim- 
inal Family."  It  was  never  printed,  being  no  more 
than  a  hurried  and  roughly  put  together  sketch, 
meant  to  be  read  at  a  Christmas  party,  and  at  once 
too  crude  and  too  gruesome  for  publication.  But  it  is 
a  vivid  picture  of  Philadelphia  in  1874,  and  of  con- 
ditions which  we  would  just  as  soon  forget.  Prison 
reform  was  then  in  its  timid  infancy.  Nobody  called 
a  criminal  a  patient,  or  crime  a  malady.  Pageants 
and  plays  were  unknown  within  the  Penitentiary 


BLOCKLEY  AND  THE  PENITENTIARY    31 

walls.  The  appeal  to  honour  and  reason  had  not  yet 
revealed  these  qualities  surviving  in  the  felon's  soul. 
Fewer  convicts  became  honest  men;  but,  on  the  other 
hand,  no  convict  went  out  blackberrying,  and  forgot 
to  return.  The  city's  politics  disgraced  its  civilization. 
The  justly  celebrated  "Board  of  Buzzards"  stole  the 
roof  off  the  almshouse,  —  a  theft  famous  in  the  annals 
of  corruption.  The  paupers'  bodies  were  dug  up  from 
the  Potter's  Field,  and  sold  to  the  medical  schools 
for  dissection.  When  the*  supply  ran  short,  the  stu- 
dents performed  this  task  for  themselves,  and  drove 
in  triumph  through  the  streets  with  the  stolen  corpse 
propped  up  stiffly  beside  them.  A  snow-storm  stopped 
the  traffic  of  the  city.  Decent  citizens  jested  at  the 
shameful  improbity  it  was  their  business  to  correct. 
Mr.  Thomas  Lawson  observed  many  years  later  that 
it  would  be  easier  to  float  down  Hell  on  a  wax  wafer 
than  to  clean  up  Philadelphia  politics.  Had  he  been 
contemplating  conditions  in  the  reign  of  the  "Buz- 
zards," he  would  have  used  —  or  would  have  en- 
deavoured to  use  —  a  more  vigorous  expression. 

The  incidents  in  Dr.  White's  grisly  little  tale  were 
borrowed,  for  the  most  part,  from  his  experience  in 
the  Penitentiary.  There  he  found  the  woman  who 
had  kept  a  baby  farm,  and  who  had  closed  out  the 
business  by  killing  all  its  inmates,  including  two  of 
her  own  offspring.  There  he  found  the  man  who  had 
smothered  his  mother-in-law,  and  buried  her,  with 


82  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

his  wife's  assistance,  under  the  kitchen  hearth.  The 
couple  had  gone  on  living  amicably  in  the  room, 
cooking  and  eating  in  undismayed  proximity  to  the 
corpse.  There  he  found  the  Baptist  negro  who,  after 
a  heated  argument  with  his  cell-mate,  a  Methodist 
negro,  had  ended  the  controversy  by  murdering  the 
offending  heretic.  The  crowded  condition  of  the  Pen- 
itentiary compelled  the  housing  of  two  prisoners  hi 
one  cell.  The  Methodist  may  have  been  the  keener 
doctrinaire,  but  the  Baptist  was  the  stronger  man. 
He  vindicated  his  beliefs  with  the  help  of  his  shoe- 
maker's knife,  and  slept  composedly  by  his  victim's 
side  for  the  remainder  of  the  night.  Through  all  this 
dreadful  narrative  runs  the  vigorous  spirit  of  youth. 
The  writer  is  not  faint  at  heart  over  the  spectacle  of 
vice,  and  crime,  and  wretchedness.  He  moves  from 
the  Penitentiary  to  Blockley,  from  Blockley  to  the 
dissecting-room,  from  the  dissecting-room  back  to 
the  Penitentiary;  fronting  the  wretched  sights,  and 
sounds,  and  smells,  as  he  fronts  the  snowdrifts  piled 
to  his  knee,  and  the  absence  of  breakfast  and  dinner. 
It  was  all  in  the  day's  work. 

With  Edward  Townsend,  the  warden  of  the  Peni- 
tentiary, and  with  Michael  Cassidy,  the  principal 
overseer,  Dr.  White  was  always  on  good  terms. 
Cassidy,  who  became  warden  in  1881,  and  held  the 
post  for  many  years,  was  a  strict  disciplinarian, 
devoid  of  sentiment,  and  possibly  of  sympathetic 


BLOCKLEY  AND  THE  PENITENTIARY    33 

understanding;  but  he  was  humane,  rational,  and 
immaculately  just.  If  the  prison  he  ruled  offered  no 
attraction  to  criminals,  neither  was  it  a  place  where 
hearts  were  cowed,  and  hope  was  lost.  The  young 
resident  took  a  friendly  interest  in  many  of  the  con- 
victs, and  was  on  terms  of  intimacy  with  at  least 
one,  —  the  famous  "Irish  giant,"  Ned  Baldwin,  who 
stood  six  feet  seven,  and  who  was  serving  a  sentence 
for  assault  and  battery  committed  when  he  was 
drunk.  From  this  man  Dr.  White  took  sparring 
lessons,  asking  no  mercy,  and  receiving  none.  The 
course  of  instruction  gave  him  many  a  bruised  and 
broken  hour,  but  he  profited  by  it  all  his  life. 

A  less  agreeable  experience  was  an  encounter  with 
an  ex-bruiser,  to  whom  he  gave  bitter  offence  by  re- 
fusing to  allow  him  a  sick  diet.  The  man  swore  hide- 
ously that  as  soon  as  he  was  released  from  prison  he 
would  celebrate  his  freedom  by  cutting  out  the  resi- 
dent's heart,  a  threat  which  left  Dr.  White  wholly  un- 
ruffled, but  which  he  was  destined  to  remember.  A  few 
years  later  he  was  exercising  with  Indian  clubs  at  the 
gymnasium  of  "  Professor  "  Billy  McLean  when  the 
door  opened,  and  the  ex-bruiser  silently  entered.  The 
doctor  held  fast  to  his  clubs  (wishing  heartily  they 
were  dumb-bells),  and  waited.  The  man  stared  for  an 
instant,  then  recognized  his  companion,  and  smiled 
broadly.  "Hallo,  Doctor,  glad  to  see  you,"  he  said 
with  democratic  cordiality,  and  went  about  his  busi- 


84  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

ness.  Had  he  been  a  Sicilian!  But  Americans  are  ill- 
disposed  to  rancour  or  revenge. 

When  Dr.  White  left  the  prison,  and  set  up  house- 
keeping for  himself  on  Sixteenth  Street,  he  gave  a 
released  convict  his  "chance."  The  man  was  an  in- 
telligent negro  who  had  served  a  twelve  years'  sen- 
tence for  killing  his  wife.  Dr.  White  took  him  for 
a  servant,  trusted  him,  and  slept  alone  in  the  house 
with  him  for  months.  Could  the  unfortunate  creature 
have  remained  sober,  he  might  have  repaid  this 
trust  with  fidelity;  but  he  drank,  and,  under  the  in- 
fluence of  liquor,  stole.  His  master  caught  him  in  the 
act,  kicked  him  downstairs,  found  to  his  infinite 
relief  that  this  vigorous  treatment  had  sobered  with- 
out injuring  him,  and  turned  the  rogue  out  of  doors,  — 
thus  severing  what  he  thought  was  his  last  connec- 
tion with  the  Penitentiary.  The  fates  ruled  other- 
wise. Nine  years  later  he  was  appointed  by  Governor 
Pattison  to  be  one  of  the  Inspectors  of  the  institution 
he  knew  so  well,  and  had  so  faithfully  served. 


CHAPTER  IV 
SURGEON  AND  TROOPER 

IN  1876  Dr.  White  spread  his  sails  to  a  favouring 
wind,  and  started  upon  his  long,  brilliant,  and 
arduous  career  as  a  practising  surgeon  in  Phila- 
delphia. He  was  at  this  time  Assistant  Demonstrator 
of  Practical  Surgery  in  the  Medical  School  of  the 
University  of  Pennsylvania,  and  also  Assistant  to  the 
Surgical  Dispensary  Service.  Within  two  years  he 
received  two  posts,  differing  widely  in  their  scope,  in 
the  surroundings  they  involved,  and  in  the  duties 
they  entailed;  but  equally  welcome  to  his  keen  and 
many-sided  ambition.  In  1877  he  was  elected  sur- 
geon to  the  First  City  Troop,  and  in  1878  he  was 
given  the  lectureship  on  Venereal  Diseases  in  the 
University's  Spring  Session.  The  lectureship  was  in 
line  with  his  professional  advancement,  with  his 
sober  studies;  and  reasonable  aspirations.  The  posi- 
tion in  the  City  Troop  was  a  daring  venture,  upon 
which  relatives  and  friends  (cautious  rather  than 
sympathetic)  were  disposed  to  look  askance.  It 
meant  entrance  upon  a  career  more  gay  than  useful, 
more  vivid  than  strenuous,  more  pleasant  than  prof- 
itable. Dr.  White  was  only  twenty-seven  years  old, 
little  known  in  his  profession,  and  utterly  unknown 


36  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

outside  of  it,  without  backing,  and  without  fortune. 
He  gave  great  promise  as  a  surgeon,  but  he  was  still 
on  the  lowest  rung  of  the  ladder.  Every  step  depended 
upon  his  own  discretion,  no  less  than  upon  his  own 
ability.  It  seemed  to  many  that  he  was  imperilling 
an  honourable  future  for  the  sake  of  a  very  agreeable 
present. 

The  temptation  was  irresistible.  The  golden  chance 
which  fortune  flung  in  his  way  was  a  challenge  to 
temerity,  and  the  young,  soberly  bred  doctor  was  the 
last  man  in  Christendom  to  reckon  dangers  too  closely. 
"The  threat  which  runs  through  all  the  winning 
music  of  the  world'*  was  to  him  a  lure  rather  than  a 
menace.  His  zest  for  the  feast  of  life  was  to  the  end 
undimmed  and  unvitiated.  I  cannot  do  better  than 
quote  here  a  paragraph  from  the  thoughtful  and  ad- 
mirable paper  of  Thomas  Robins,  which  aptly  illus- 
trates this  phase  of  his  friend's  advancement: 

"There  were  always  two  Whites.  One  was  the  man 
who  burned  the  midnight  oil,  the  man  ambitious  for 
professional  success,  the  man  whose  wide  reading  and 
studious  turn  of  mind  made  him  an  effective  teacher, 
and  a  master  of  the  intricacies  of  a  difficult  science. 
That  was  the  White  of  the  profession.  The  other 
White  was  a  light-hearted  boy,  loving  out-door  life, 
gay  companionship,  the  society  of  men  of  the  world, 
the  sports  of  the  country  gentleman,  the  midnight 
chimes.  That  was  the  White  who  quickly  acquired 


SURGEON  AND  TROOPER  37 

the  wide  acquaintance,  and  bound  to  himself,  as  with 
hooks  of  steel,  the  affections  of  many  men,  and  the 
absolute  devotion  of  a  group  who  cared  nothing  for 
his  professional  attainments,  but  who  were  willing  to 
trust  any  man  who  rode  a  steeplechase  as  fearlessly 
as  did  the  spectacled  young  surgeon.  To  his  last  hour, 
White  never  knew  which  of  the  two  lives  he  liked 
the  better,  —  the  one  which  threw  him  with  scien- 
tific men,  or  the  other  which  allied  him  with  the 
votaries  of  Pan." 

Forty  years  ago  the  passion  for  athletics  was  less 
common,  and  far  less  glorified,  than  it  is  to-day.  Dr. 
White's  prowess  in  this  field  was  held  to  be,  at  best, 
an  eccentricity;  at  worst,  a  danger  signal.  A  physician 
was  then  expected  to  amble  around  from  patient  to 
patient,  from  office  to  lecture  room  or  dispensary;  to 
drive  —  when  he  could  afford  it  —  a  covered  buggy 
with  a  negro  boy  to  hold  the  horse;  to  grow  round- 
shouldered  stooping  over  his  desk;  to  have  a  good 
bedside  manner,  and  a  list  of  acceptable  stories.  He 
laboured  under  the  disadvantage  of  not  being  able 
to  acquire  a  family  practice  until  he  was  married, 
and  of  not  being  able  to  marry  until  he  had  a  practice. 
He  was  held  to  book  almost  as  rigidly  as  a  clergyman. 
Dr.  White  presented  a  sharp  contrast  to  this  recog- 
nized and  familiar  type.  He  was  just  beginning  to 
"make  good";  yet  he  spent  his  spare  hours  with 
young,  gay,  light-hearted  men,  sparred  with  pugilists, 


38  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

rode  hard  and  well,  and  swam  from  the  Atlantic  City 
lighthouse  to  the  "elephant,"  nine  miles  along  the 
coast.  Perhaps  if  he  had  possessed  the  lazy  good- 
humour  which  so  often  accompanies  great  physical 
strength,  these  feats  might  have  been  more  easily 
forgiven;  but  his  irascible  temper  was  imperfectly 
controlled,  his  anger  flared  like  a  resinous  torch,  he 
was  as  impatient  of  folly  as  if  it  were  not  the  ap- 
pointed portion  of  mankind,  and  he  had  not  a  gram 
of  meekness  hi  his  spiritual  constitution.  Exaggera- 
tion was  foreign  to  his  mind  and  speech.  He  was  more 
prone  to  under-statements  than  to  over-statements 
all  his  life.  But  he  never  understood  the  staying 
power  of  patience;  he  never  knew  that  the  soul  armed 
with  this  weapon  can  fight  against  heavy  odds. 

If,  as  Mr.  Robins  says,  young  men  —  in  contra- 
distinction to  old  ones  —  were  disposed  to  trust  im- 
plicitly in  a  doctor  who  shared  their  sports  and 
excelled  in  them,  they  did  not  trust  in  vain.  Dr. 
White  repaid  their  confidence  with  kindness  and  wise 
counsel.  He  understood  the  spirit  of  youth  because 
it  throbbed  exultantly  in  his  own  veins;  but  he  had 
always  a  clear  insight  into  values.  He  knew  that,  in 
the  final  analysis,  it  is  character,  and  character  only, 
that  counts.  Excess  was  distasteful  to  him,  weakness 
unknown.  M ens  sana  in  corpore  sano  was  the  creed 
he  preached,  the  rule  he  lived  by.  There  were  gaps 
in  his  philosophy,  and  far  horizons  which  he  never 


SURGEON  AND  TROOPER  39 

scanned;  but  he  was  a  friend  of  all  who  faced  life 
bravely,  and  a  tonic  to  the  morally  debilitated. 

There  was  but  one  break  for  many  years  in  his 
professional  life.  In  November,  1879,  he  went  to 
Europe  for  the  first  time,  having  in  his  charge  his 
uncle,  Dr.  S.  S.  White,  who  had  been  seriously  ill.  It 
was  a  brief  and  tragic  experience.  The  patient  had 
hardly  reached  France  when  he  grew  rapidly  worse, 
and  died  in  Paris  on  December  30.  His  nephew  re- 
turned with  the  body,  and  never  again  crossed  the 
Atlantic  until  after  his  marriage  in  1888. 

As  early  as  1878  we  find  Dr.  White  in  consultation 
with  the  famous  Philadelphia  surgeon,  Dr.  D.  Hayes 
Agnew,  who  was  to  play  so  important  a  part  in  his 
life.  Dr.  Agnew  was  then  Professor  of  Surgery  in  the 
University  of  Pennsylvania,  a  man  of  great  ability, 
of  quiet  wisdom,  and  of  unbounded  kindness;  mod- 
erate in  the  acquirement  of  wealth,  generous  with 
his  time  and  talents.  He  had  taken  for  his  model 
the  great  French  military  surgeon,  Jean  Dominique, 
Baron  Larrey,  whom  Napoleon  pronounced  to  be 
the  best  man  he  had  ever  known,  and  whose  versa- 
tility equalled  his  virtues.  Larrey  was  doctor  and 
nurse  as  well  as  surgeon.  He  invented  the  ambu- 
lance volante  for  transporting  wounded  soldiers.  He 
amputated  General  Silly's  leg  on  the  battle-field 
at  Aboukir,  under  the  enemy's  fire,  then  took  his 
patient  on  his  back,  and  carried  him  safely  to  the 


40  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

French  lines.  Dr.  Agnew's  sympathetic  study  of  this 
remarkable  man  was  nearly  as  well  known  as  were 
his  three  volumes  on  "The  Principles  and  Practice  of 
Surgery,"  a  work  used  as  a  textbook  in  the  United 
States,  Great  Britain,  and  Japan.  The  years  that  Dr. 
White  served  as  assistant  to  Dr.  Agnew  were  of  in- 
estimable value  to  him.  In  1882  he  was  made  Demon- 
strator of  Surgery;  but  his  connection  with  the  older 
surgeon  was  never  broken  until  the  latter's  retire- 
ment from  active  work  in  1889.  He  figures  promi- 
nently in  Thomas  Eakins's  interesting  painting  of 
Dr.  Agnew  at  his  Clinic,  which  was  presented  to  the 
University  on  the  first  of  May,  1889,  by  the  under- 
graduate classes  of  the  Medical  Department. 

Meanwhile  two  incidents  had  occurred  which 
brought  Dr.  White  into  the  limelight  of  public  no- 
tice, earning  for  him  angry  abuse,  and  a  fair  share  of 
ridicule.  In  March,  1880,  while  he  was  on  the  surgi- 
cal staff  of  the  Philadelphia  Hospital,  some  women 
students  who  attended  his  Blockley  clinics  com- 
plained that  he  showed  distaste  for  their  presence, 
and  that  he  sought  to  drive  them  away  by  unwar- 
ranted freedom  of  speech.  They  presented  their 
grievance  to  Mr.  James  S.  Chambers,  President  of 
the  Board  of  Guardians  of  the  Poor.  They  also  pre- 
sented it  to  the  public  through  the  medium  of  the 
daily  press,  greatly  to  the  annoyance  of  the  Dean  of 
the  Women's  Medical  College,  Dr.  Rachel  L.  Bodley, 


Dr.  Agnew  at  his  Clinic:  Dr.  White  Assisting 

From  the  painting  by  Thomas  Eakins    (Copyright) 


SURGEON  AND  TROOPER  41 

who  held  stern  views  on  the  propriety  of  silence, 
whose  students  seldom  went  to  the  Blockley  clinics, 
and  who  had  never  found  occasion  for  complaint. 
Dr.  White  explained  curtly  to  the  Board  of  Guardians 
that  —  like  Dr.  Agnew  —  he  did  not  wish  to  have 
women  at  his  clinics,  because  the  nature  of  the  dis- 
eases with  which  they  dealt,  and  the  condition  of  the 
patients  treated  at  them,  made  the  presence  of  fe- 
male students  undesirable.  If,  however,  they  thought 
it  well  to  come  (this  being  their  privilege),  the  only 
course  open  to  him  was  to  conduct  his  clinics  as  if 
they  were  young  men.  It  seemed  to  him  less  decent 
to  emphasize  the  presence  of  women  on  such  occa- 
sions than  to  ignore  it.  The  Board  was  at  liberty  to 
ask  for  his  resignation;  but  as  long  as  he  conducted 
the  clinics,  he  must  do  so  in  the  way  which  seemed  to 
him  most  fitting. 

The  men  students  offered  an  earnest  and  indignant 
defence  of  their  instructor.  Even  the  poor  derelicts 
whom  he  treated  were  eager  to  testify  to  his  con- 
sideration. The  Hospital  Committee  investigated 
the  charges,  exonerated  him  completely,  and  asked 
the  Board  of  Guardians  for  a  vote  of  confidence,  a 
vote  which  should  express  absolute  satisfaction  with 
his  performance  of  his  duties.  There  the  matter 
ended.  The  vindication  strengthened  Dr.  White's 
position,  and  gave  deep  satisfaction  to  his  friends. 
They  knew  that,  although  no  perfected  miracle  of 


42  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

seemliness,  he  could  no  more  have  offered  offence 
to  a  modest  woman  than  he  could  have  struck  a 
child. 

The  second  episode  was  of  a  non-professional  char- 
acter, and  more  far-reaching  in  its  results.  Forty 
years  ago,  duelling  was  as  obsolete  in  the  United 
States  as  it  is  to-day.  It  was,  or  men  thought  it 
was,  as  extinct  as  the  dodo.  Yet  Dr.  White,  dis- 
regarding both  custom  and  consequence,  fought  a 
duel;  a  bloodless  one,  it  is  true,  but  none  the  less  a 
duel,  with  pistols,  at  fifteen  paces,  after  the  approved 
fashion  of  other  lands  and  centuries.  His  antagonist 
was  Robert  Adams,  Jr.,  and  the  simple  subject  of 
dispute  was  the  proper  dress  to  be  worn  by  a  sur- 
geon of  the  City  Troop.  Hitherto  the  gentlemen 
holding  this  post  had  been  content  with  a  nonde- 
script but  obligatory  costume,  which  included  white 
trousers  and  a  blue  frockcoat.  Dr.  White  asked  to  be 
permitted  to  wear  the  uniform  of  the  Troop.  Objec- 
tions were  raised  by  certain  troopers,  and  voiced 
with  more  force  than  courtesy  by  Mr.  Adams.  A 
quarrel,  a  blow  (given  by  Dr.  White),  a  challenge 
(sent  by  Mr.  Adams),  ensued.  The  duellists  met 
on  the  Maryland-Delaware  border-line,  Charles  H. 
Townsend  acting  as  second  for  Dr.  White,  and 
Alexander  Wood  for  Mr.  Adams.  Dr.  R.  William 
Ashbridge  accompanied  the  party  as  surgeon.  Shots 
were  exchanged,  Dr.  White  being  seen  to  fire  in  the 


SURGEON  AND  TROOPER  43 

air,  the  principals  shook  hands,  and  the  five  gentle- 
men returned  to  Philadelphia. 

Such  an  event  could  not  possibly  be  held  a  secret. 
Publicity  was  inevitable.  To  say  that  the  newspapers 
snatched  their  chance  would  be  to  faintly  express 
their  satisfaction  over  this  unusual  and  exciting 
scandal.  Had  the  Philadelphia  press  offered  a  vote  of 
thanks  to  the  duellists  for  affording  such  priceless 
subject-matter  for  comment  and  criticism,  it  would 
have  shown  no  more  than  decent  gratitude.  Instead 
of  this,  the  journals  united  in  a  chorus  of  dispraise. 
They  told  the  plain  story  over  and  over  again  with  a 
wealth  of  varying  detail.  They  printed  grave  edito- 
rials on  the  lawlessness  of  duelling.  They  demanded 
that  the  law-breakers  should  be  brought  to  justice. 
They  made  merry  over  the  casus  belli.  They  heaped 
ridicule  upon  the  "callow  youths"  (Dr.  White  was 
thirty  years  old),  the  fretful  quarrel,  the  bloodless 
contest.  Even  the  New  York  papers  dropped  their 
languid  indifference  to  quiet  Philadelphia,  and  took 
notice  of  the  two  unquiet  Philadelphians.  The  "Her- 
ald" offered  the  gratuitous  fiction  that  a  lady, 
"whose  name  has  been  suppressed  out  of  respect 
for  the  family,"  occasioned  the  duel.  The  "Sun" 
opined  that  "unearned  money  and  idleness  do  not 
seem  to  agree  any  better  with  the  young  men  of  Phil- 
adelphia than  with  the  young  men  of  New  York,"  — 
a  harmless  shaft  to  aim  at  the  self-supporting  surgeon, 


44  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

who  for  ten  years  had  not  known  or  desired  a  respite 
from  hard  work. 

Amid  all  this  buzz  and  hum,  Dr.  White  went  his 
usual  rounds,  gave  his  lectures,  visited  his  patients, 
and  kept  his  own  counsel.  His  only  recorded  comment 
(made  to  a  persevering  reporter)  was  to  the  effect 
that  he  looked  upon  duelling  "as  a  relic  of  a  past  age, 
with  which  the  present  generation  has  nothing  to  do"; 
a  sensible  generalization,  but  not  —  under  the  cir- 
cumstances —  enlightening.  He  let  the  newspapers 
have  their  fling,  recognizing  it  as  their  prerogative; 
but  he  permitted  no  personal  gibes  or  criticism,  and 
he  was  not  the  kind  of  man  whom  people  lightly 
offended.  "The  possession  of  great  physical  strength 
is  no  mean  assistance  to  a  straightforward  life,"  says 
Augustine  Birrell,  commenting  upon  Dr.  Johnson. 
When  Johnson  was  insulted  by  a  rapacious  book- 
seller, he  promptly  knocked  the  fellow  down.  When 
Foote  proposed  to  caricature  him  on  the  stage,  the 
great  "Christian  lexicographer"  replied  that  he 
would,  hi  that  event,  thrash  the  caricaturist  on  the 
street,  and  Foote  prudently  forbore.  If  Dr.  Johnson 
cherished  few  rancours,  it  was  largely  because  he  tol- 
erated no  liberties.  In  the  same  unaccommodating 
spirit,  Dr.  White  refused  all  his  life  to  suffer  any  in- 
jurious word  or  deed.  When  an  irritable  pedestrian 
swore  at  him  on  the  Philadelphia  streets,  he  took  the 
trouble  (and  it  involved  a  great  deal  of  trouble)  to 


SURGEON  AND  TROOPER  45 

get  out  of  his  carriage,  demand  an  apology,  and  — 
not  receiving  it  —  knock  the  offender  into  the  gutter. 
A  prompt  arrest  followed.  Dr.  White  told  Magistrate 
Lennon  that  it  was  not  his  habit  to  permit  insulting 
language.  The  young  man  who  had  been  bowled 
over  explained  in  his  turn  that  a  fracas  was  the  last 
thing  he  had  anticipated  or  desired.  "I  had  no  idea 
he"  (Dr.  White)  "meant  to  fight,"  he  said  simply; 
"and  I  told  him  to  go  to  Hell,  just  as  any  other 
gentleman  would  do  under  the  circumstances." 

The  breach  of  law  involved  in  the  duel  did  no 
great  harm  to  Mr.  Adams;  but  there  is  little  doubt 
that  Dr.  White  suffered  professionally.  Nothing 
could  hold  back  his  private  practice,  which  was  in- 
creasing rapidly  in  volume  and  importance.  Nothing 
could  shake  the  confidence  which  Dr.  Agnew  and 
other  surgeons  reposed  in  his  skill.  But  there  was  at 
least  one  institution  which  would  have  none  of  him 
because  he  had  been  a  duellist.  For  years  the  inci- 
dent was  remembered  against  him.  For  years  men 
shook  their  heads  as  if  they  expected  him  to  run 
amuck  through  society.  On  the  other  hand,  he 
gained  (for  as  much  as  it  was  worth)  the  point  under 
dispute,  and  more.  He  received  his  commission  in  the 
City  Troop,  wore  his  uniform,  and,  after  his  faithful 
fashion,  remained  for  years  deeply  interested  in  its 
work  and  welfare. 

There  came  a  day  when  the  duellists  —  nominally 


46  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

friends  after  the  engagement  —  sank  all  shadow  of 
animosity,  and  talked  the  matter  over  with  good- 
humoured  unconcern.  "You  fired  in  the  air,  did  n't 
you?"  asked  Mr.  Adams.  "Yes,  I  did,"  answered 
Dr.  White.  "I  did  n't,"  said  Mr.  Adams,  "I  fired  at 
you." 

There  were  those  who  held  that  to  this  fortunate 
circumstance  Dr.  White  owed  his  life. 


CHAPTER  V 
MILESTONES 

r  ll-tUb;  Chinese  have  a  saying,  as  true  as  it  is  old, 
JL  that  if  a  man  is  not  tall  when  he  is  twenty, 
strong  when  he  is  thirty,  and  wise  when  he  is  forty, 
he  will  never  be  tall,  nor  strong,  nor  wise.  After  1880, 
Dr.  White,  having  passed  his  thirtieth  year,  tall 
enough  for  any  eye,  strong  enough  for  any  venture, 
began  seriously  to  qualify  for  wisdom.  An  able  man 
may  enjoy  the  headlong  pleasures  of  youth  as  simply 
and  as  avidly  as  does  a  fool.  His  advantage  lies  in  his 
being  able  to  enjoy  other  things  as  well.  Ambition 
strengthens  with  the  first  chilling  of  high  spirits;  the 
overpowering  interest  of  successful  work  weakens 
the  love  of  play;  increasing  obligations  leave  little 
time  for  folly.  A  great  deal  has  been  said  about  the 
dullness  of  duty;  but  the  dullness  of  irresponsibility 
is  a  more  appalling  article.  It  is  poor  fun  to  live  in 
the  tree-tops  with  Peter  Pan,  when,  down  in  the  city 
streets,  men  are  battling  for  the  worth  of  life.  If  Dr. 
White  never  closed  his  heart  to  the  memory  of  old 
days,  or  to  the  associates  who  had  lent  them  gaiety, 
he  turned  his  mind  resolutely  to  the  new  order  of 
purpose  and  achievement.  The  annals  of  the  Uni- 
versity show  him  filling  year  by  year  positions  of 


48  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

increased  responsibility,  —  Demonstrator  of  Surgery, 
Lecturer,  Assistant  Surgeon  on  the  Hospital  Staff. 
His  profession  engrossed  his  tune  and  interests.  He 
worked  harder  and  harder  as  his  will  concentrated 
itself  upon  the  tasks  of  every  day.  If  he  kept  a 
quarrel  or  two  on  hand,  it  was  only  for  the  sake  of 
an  occasional  and  needed  distraction. 

One  gift  was  his  throughout  life.  He  was  always 
able  to  express  his  convictions  and  impart  his  knowl- 
edge in  terms  which  were  intelligible  to  his  chosen 
audience.  When  he  spoke  to  students,  he  bore  in 
mind  their  intellectual  limitations,  and  made  his 
meaning  clear  as  daylight  to  then*  not  very  receptive 
minds.  When  he  gave  his  emergency  lectures  at 
Blockley,  his  language  was  so  simple,  his  demonstra- 
tions so  well  chosen  and  so  well  executed,  that  no 
one  could  fail  to  understand  him.  The  laity  was  then 
just  beginning  to  realize  the  comprehensive  nature 
of  its  ignorance,  its  inability  to  give  "first  aid"  to 
the  sick  and  injured.  Dr.  White's  lectures  became 
enormously  popular,  and  so  fashionable  that  atten- 
tive newspapers  printed  lists  of  names,  headed 
"Among  those  present,"  as  if  the  sober  audience 
which  gathered,  notebook  in  hand,  had  been  dancing 
at  an  Assembly. 

This  was  the  time  when  the  English  nurse,  Miss 
Alice  Fisher,  was  head  of  the  Blockley  training- 
school,  and  had  accomplished  many  needed  reforms. 


MILESTONES  49 

She  was  a  woman  who  presented  the  rare  combina- 
tion of  unusual  intelligence,  a  pleasing  address,  and 
heroic  devotion  to  a  purpose.  The  daughter  of  a 
clergyman,  the  granddaughter  of  a  head-master  of 
Eton,  she  had  received  admirable  instruction  in  the 
General  Hospital,  Birmingham.  She  brought  with 
her  to  this  country  a  young  and  very  handsome  as- 
sistant, Miss  Edith  Horner,  who  subsequently  mar- 
ried Senator  Hawley  of  Connecticut.  The  two  women 
revolutionized  the  Philadelphia  Hospital,  which 
could  well  "thole  a  mend";  and  Dr.  White  lent  them 
his  vigorous  support.  When  in  1885  the  typhoid  epi- 
demic broke  out  in  Plymouth,  Pennsylvania,  Miss 
Fisher  asked  for  a  two  months'  holiday,  which  she 
spent  organizing  a  hospital  in  the  stricken  town.  The 
conditions  were  appalling,  relief  came  slowly,  the 
work  to  be  done  was  beyond  a  woman's  strength.  But 
her  courage  never  failed,  her  tenacity  toughened 
under  the  weight  of  difficulties,  and  willing  hands 
carried  out  her  measures  as  well  as  the  disastrous 
circumstances  permitted.  How  many  victims  were 
saved  by  her  heroism  none  will  ever  know.  Her  own 
life  paid  the  forfeit.  She  returned  to  Philadelphia, 
and  took  up  her  old  work  with  her  old  interest  and 
vigour;  but  never  with  her  old  endurance.  Her  heart, 
which  had  been  weakened  by  an  attack  of  inflam- 
matory rheumatism  fifteen  years  earlier,  was  se- 
riously affected  by  the  strain  of  those  two  bitter 


50  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

months.  She  died  in  June,  1888.  Dr.  White,  who  had 
been  from  the  first  her  friend  and  ally,  was  her  de- 
voted physician  and  her  executor.  Her  memory  was 
long  cherished  by  the  Blockley  nurses,  who  went  in 
procession  every  year  to  decorate  her  grave.  It  will 
never,  I  trust,  be  wholly  forgotten  by  the  city  which 
she  served. 

Another  remarkable  illustration  of  Dr.  WThite's 
ability  to  reach  his  audience  was  the  success  which 
attended  his  emergency  lectures  to  the  Philadelphia 
police.  The  incident  which  occasioned  them  was  com- 
mon enough  in  the  eighties,  and  is  not  altogether 
uncommon  to-day.  A  sick  man,  thought  to  be  drunk, 
was  picked  up  on  the  streets,  and  locked  in  a  station 
cell  to  die.  He  did  die,  no  other  course  being  open  to 
him;  and  the  evidence  offered  at  the  inquest  of  his 
decent  life  lent  weight  -to  the  indignation  aroused 
by  his  lonely  and  pitiful  death.  Everybody  said  the 
police  ought  to  know  illness  from  drunkenness,  and 
one  man,  Dr.  WTiite,  proposed  to  teach  them  the 
difference.  His  suggestion  was  gladly  adopted  by 
Mayor  King.  The  lectures  were  given  in  the  Police 
Headquarters,  in  Horticultural  Hall,  in  Association 
Hall,  and  in  the  Medical  Department  of  the  Uni- 
versity. An  alert  and  attentive  audience  of  from 
seventy  to  five  hundred  men  attended  every  one. 
They  were  told  how  to  treat  accident  cases,  how  to 
relieve  sunstroke  and  heat  exhaustion,  how  to  use  a 


MILESTONES  51 

stretcher,  how  to  recognize  symptoms  of  heart  failure 
and  apoplexy.  No  man  living  could  have  conveyed 
this  information  more  clearly  than  did  Dr.  White, 
or  have  riveted  more  closely  the  attention  of  his 
hearers.  The  only  danger  lay  in  the  excessive  zeal  of 
the  police,  who  showed  a  disposition  to  test  their 
freshly  acquired  proficiency  by  acting  on  their  own 
initiative  in  cases  which  might  with  propriety  have 
been  confided  to  a  doctor. 

In  December,  1884,  a  new  and  eminently  sympa- 
thetic field  of  work  was  opened  to  the  busy  surgeon, 
who  hailed  it  as  rapturously  as  if  his  days  were  not 
already  full  to  overflowing.  The  University  of  Penn- 
sylvania resolved  to  found  a  Department  of  Physical 
Education,  along  the  lines  established  by  Harvard 
College,  and  Dr.  White  was  chosen  to  be  its  first 
director.  Nothing  could  have  been  more  to  his  liking. 
Since  the  days  when  he  had  lamented  in  his  high 
school  theme  that  boys  had  too  many  lessons  and 
too  little  play,  he  had  never  ceased  to  urge  the  im- 
portance of  athletics.  He  knew  the  perils  of  a  seden- 
tary life,  and  the  perils  of  violent  and  undirected  ex- 
ercise. He  knew  that  a  royal  road  to  learning  is  no 
harder  to  find  than  a  royal  road  to  health.  The  need 
of  a  University  Gymnasium  had  been  ever  present 
in  his  mind.  The  position  offered  him  was  one  of 
dignity  and  importance.  It  made  him  a  member  of 
the  Faculty,  it  enabled  him  to  advance  a  cause  which 


52  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

he  had  deeply  at  heart,  and  it  brought  him  into  new 
contact  with  the  student  body. 

For  three  years  he  laboured  unceasingly,  and  with- 
out salary,  to  raise  the  standard  of  athletics.  He 
offered  a  cup  for  competition;  he  reorganized  the 
annual  Bowl  Fight,  making  it  less  of  a  scrimmage 
and  more  of  a  contest;  he  began  to  raise  money  and 
to  consider  plans  for  the  Gymnasium.  In  November, 
1886,  we  find  him  warmly  seconding  Dr.  Sargent  of 
Harvard  in  a  defence  of  college  football.  When  his 
election  to  the  newly  created  chair  of  Genito-Urinary 
Surgery  at  the  University  made  it  sheerly  impossible 
for  him  to  continue  to  hold  the  directorship  of  Phys- 
ical Education,  he  resigned  it  in  1887,  with  infinite 
regret,  and  without  any  slackening  of  interest  in  its 
work.  His  enthusiasm  rose  to  fever  pitch  when,  in 
the  same  year,  William  Byrd  Page,  son  of  S.  Davis 
Page  of  Philadelphia,  Assistant  United  States  Treas- 
urer, broke  his  own  record,  and,  incidentally,  the 
world's  record,  by  clearing  the  bar  at  six  feet  four 
inches  in  a  running  jump  on  the  University  Athletic 
Association  grounds.  That  the  English  athletes, 
Clarke  and  Ray,  should  have  been  present  on  this 
memorable  occasion  added  to  the  general  satisfac- 
tion. Philadelphia  found  herself,  and  was  well  pleased 
to  find  herself,  "respected  like  the  lave." 

In  June,  1888,  Dr.  White  married  Letitia,  daughter 
of  Mr.  Benjamin  H.  Brown,  and  sailed  with  his  bride 


MILESTONES  53 

for  England.  From  this  year  date  the  voluminous 
diaries  which  he  never  failed  to  keep  of  his  summer 
wanderings;  but,  which,  alas!  always  came  to  an  end 
when  he  returned  home,  and  took  up  the  really 
interesting  things  of  life.  All  records  of  travel  are 
curiously  alike.  Mr.  Brownell  says  that,  beside  Haw- 
thorne's "Note-Books,"  "Baedeker  reads  like  Gib- 
bon"; and  where  Hawthorne  succumbed,  who  is 
strong  enough  to  resist?  Good  letter- writers  grow 
monumentally  dull  when  they  take  a  journey,  and 
tell  us  what  they  have  seen,  —  James  Ho  well  being 
the  only  notable  exception  to  this  rule.  Dr.  White's 
diaries  are  full  of  minute  detail,  because,  as  in  the  old 
Hassler  days,  he  could  not  bear  to  leave  anything 
untold.  That  he  should  have  had  the  time  and  the 
patience  to  write  them  is  one  of  the  many  marvels  of 
his  life.  He  travelled  hard  and  fast,  he  saw  every- 
thing that  was  to  be  seen;  yet  if  he  had  his  greatcoat 
cleaned,  or  Mrs.  White  left  her  ulster  to  be  shortened, 
he  made  a  leisurely  entry  of  the  fact. 

In  London  he  met  the  famous  surgeon,  Mr.  Treves, 
afterwards  Sir  Frederick  Treves,  and  laid  the  foun- 
dation of  a  singularly  happy  friendship.  He  also  met 
Sir  Joseph  Lister,  afterwards  Lord  Lister,  for  whom 
he  entertained  the  deepest  reverence,  and  with  whom 
he  spent  "the  most  interesting  evening  of  my  life," 
talking  antiseptic  surgery  until  midnight.  His  own 
lectures  on  antiseptics  had  crowded  the  University 


54  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

lecture  room  during  the  previous  winter,  and  it  was 
with  enthusiasm  that  he  listened  to  the  man  whose 
power  of  observation  had  revolutionized  the  treat- 
ment of  wounds,  and  saved  so  many  lives.  It  was 
significant  of  Dr.  White's  sane  and  robust  attitude 
to  his  profession  that  the  saving  of  life  was  for  him 
the  aim  and  end  of  surgery.  Research,  demonstration, 
scientific  principles,  interested  him  less  than  the  pa- 
tient he  had  on  hand,  and  who  sometimes  betrayed 
a  lamentable  and  unsportsmanlike  disposition  to  die. 
"  E  f  aut  beaucoup  pardonner  a  la  nature,"  said  Fagon, 
the  famous  physician  of  Louis  the  Fourteenth.  Dr. 
White  forgave  nothing.  He  entertained  a  deep  and 
well-warranted  suspicion  that  what  nature  is  after 
is  to  kill,  and  he  fought  this  purpose  with  all  the 
energy  of  his  soul.  Being  asked  once  if  the  skill  of  a 
surgeon  lay  in  his  knowledge  of  anatomy,  in  the  sure- 
ness  of  his  diagnosis,  or  in  the  delicacy  of  his  touch, 
he  said  simply  that,  to  his  mind,  the  skill  of  a  sur- 
geon lay  in  his  ability  to  keep  his  patient  alive  after 
an  operation.  Otherwise,  cui  bono  ? 

It  was  perhaps  inevitable  that,  in  this  first  foreign 
summer,  Dr.  WHhite  should  have  behaved  as  if  nothing 
in  Europe  was  going  to  last  another  year.  Not  sat- 
isfied with  Paris  hospitals,  and  German  rivers,  and 
Swiss  glaciers,  and  Flemish  pictures,  the  dauntless 
pair  went  buoyantly  to  Italy  in  August,  and  have 
left  it  ota  record  that,  on  the  fifteenth  of  that  in- 


MILESTONES  55 

auspicious  month,  they  saw  Pompeii  and  climbed 
Vesuvius.  Pompeii  and  Vesuvius  on  one  day,  and 
that  day  the  15th  of  August!  "Few  women  could 
have  accomplished  it,"  writes  the  diarist  proudly; 
and,  of  a  certainty,  not  many  would  have  tried. 
"  For  five  successive  summers  the  programme  of  Eu- 
ropean travel  was  repeated,  but  never  at  the  same 
impetuous  speed,  and  never  with  the  same  heavy 
sense  of  responsibility.  By  the  following  June  the 
doctor  had  grown  so  lax  that  he  could  write  hi  his 
diary,  "It  is  hardly  worth  while  to  attempt  a  de- 
scription of  the  Elgin  marbles."  Twelve  months  be- 
fore he  would  not  have  turned  idly  from  this  task. 
He  can  also  accuse  his  friend  and  companion,  Hart- 
man  Kuhn,  of  making  up  his  diary  with  an  open 
Baedeker  for  inspiration.  Baedekers  and  tourist 
diaries  are  as  inseparable  as  the  Siamese  twins.  The 
correctness  with  which  Dr.  White  packs  the  conso- 
nants into  the  names  of  his  Welsh  villages  proves  the 
benign  presence  of  a  guide-book. 

The  summer  of  1890  contained  three  memorable 
experiences.  A  lazy  little  trip  with  Treves  and  his 
family  in  a  house-boat  on  the  Broads,  a  tour  of  the 
Berlin  hospitals  hi  company  with  Sir  Joseph  Lis- 
ter, and  a  visit  to  Count  Pappenheim  (who  had 
married  Miss  Mary  Wheeler  of  Philadelphia)  in  his 
Bavarian  home.  The  first  occurrence  was  the  most 
enjoyable.  The  carefully  planned  idleness  of  an  Eng- 


56  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

lish  holiday  was  a  revelation  to  the  busy  American 
tourists.  The  boat,  like  the  famous  Mississippi 
steamer,  was  warranted  to  float  "wherever  the 
ground  was  a  little  damp."  Its  occupants  were  con- 
genial companions.  "I  consider  it  great  good  luck," 
notes  the  doctor  hi  his  diary,  "that  Treves  should 
turn  out  to  be  the  sort  of  fellow  he  is;  as  fond  of 
bathing  and  swimming  as  I  am"  (which  meant  that 
he  was  semi-amphibious),  "and  ready  for  any  kind 
of  fun."  The  Bavarian  visit  involved  meeting  a  great 
many  Germans,  new  in  type,  and  therefore  pro- 
foundly interesting  to  Dr.  White,  who,  all  his  life, 
approached  men  of  every  rank  and  condition  with 
mental  ease.  It  was  this  distinguishing  characteristic, 
coupled  with  the  tenacity  of  his  friendships,  which 
made  human  intercourse  so  sweet. 

As  for  the  Berlin  hospitals,  the  diary  must  speak 
for  itself.  There  are  several  entries,  but  one  will  suf- 
fice. The  doctor  went  with  Lister  to  see  Dr.  Von 
Bergmann,  who  had  the  most  important  surgical 
practice  in  the  Empire,  demonstrate  in  the  Royal 
Clinic  his  method  of  dressing  wounds.  A  number  of 
women,  whose  breasts  had  been  excised  for  cancer, 
were  shown  to  the  students.  "The  scars  were  ugly, 
pigmented,  irregular  and  irritable,"  writes  the  Amer- 
ican surgeon.  "The  dressings  stank.  Pus  ran  out  of 
the  wounds.  I  have  helped  Agnew  with  hundreds  of 
these  cases,  and  have  operated  on  dozens  of  them, 


MILESTONES  67 

and  I  can  truthfully  say  that  we  have  never  had 
such  wretched  results.  Other  cases  brought  in  were 
not  much  better,  and  I  left  the  Clinic,  disgusted  with 
this  first  glimpse  of  German  surgery.  Lister  shared 
my  view,  and  expressed  himself  strongly  to  me  on 
the  subject." 

In  the  summer  of  1891,  Dr.  and  Mrs.  White  went 
with  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Alfred  Harrison  on  their  yacht, 
Speranza,  to  Norway  and  the  North  Cape,  to  Stock- 
holm and  to  Russia.  It  was  a  life  of  comparative 
leisure  (save  for  a  breathless  rush  to  Moscow),  and 
of  superlative  luxury.  Eating  and  drinking  play  a 
heavy  part  in  the  yachtman's  monotonous  existence 
(there  were  days  when  the  bill  of  fare  was  apparently 
the  only  thing  to  be  noted);  and  one  wonders  if,  in 
this  welter  of  menus,  the  doctor  ever  recalled  the 
long,  long  week  of  pork  and  beans  and  hard  work  on 
the  heaving  decks  of  the  Hassler.  He  plunged  deeply 
into  Russian  history  by  way  of  preparing  for  St. 
Petersburg,  and  was  a  bit  dumbfounded  by  this  first 
introduction  to  the  annals  of  the  Romanoffs.  "The 
only  thing  I  know  to  compare  with  it  in  the  way  of 
family  history,"  he  writes,  "is  one  of  those  that  we 
made  in  our  reports  at  the  Eastern  Penitentiary,  to 
show  how  criminality  may  be  inherited." 

It  was  at  the  close  of  this  varied  tour  that  a  new 
light  broke  upon  Dr.  White's  mind,  a  new  resolve 
entered  his  soul.  Europe  attracted  him  as  powerfully 


58  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

as  ever,  but  Europe  did  not  necessarily  imply  per- 
petual motion.  If  Treves  could  stay  in  one  place 
(and  that  place  usually  remote  from  civilization), 
and  be  happy,  why  should  not  he?  The  English  sur- 
geon's simple  conception  of  surroundings  was  like 
that  of  Thomas  a  Kempis:  "What  canst  thou  see 
elsewhere  that  thou  dost  not  see  here?  Behold  the 
heavens,  and  the  earth,  and  all  the  elements;  for  out 
of  these  are  all  things  made."  The  American  surgeon, 
town-bred,  and  with  the  restlessness  of  his  race, 
could  never  attain  that  serene  hold  upon  nature, 
that  closeness  to  mother  earth,  which  gives  the 
Briton,  as  it  gave  Antaeus,  his  mighty  staying-power. 
But  he  was  well  equipped  for  an  ordinary  outdoor 
life.  A  strong  swimmer,  a  tireless  walker,  an  admir- 
able horseman,  a  devoted  cyclist,  a  persevering  fish- 
erman, he  could  always  make  sure  of  occupation  and 
fatigue.  In  every  one  of  these  fields  Mrs.  White 
played  her  heroic  part,  —  vaulting  ambition  making 
up  for  any  lack  of  physical  endurance.  A  determi- 
nation to  "travel  less  and  rest  more"  is  recorded  in 
the  diary,  and  it  bore  fruit  in  two  successive  English 
holidays,  one  spent  in  West  Lulworth,  and  one  in  the 
Scillies,  and  both  filled  to  the  brim  with  the  simple 
happenings  common  to  English  country  life. 

Now  and  then  a  very  uncommon  happening  va- 
ried the  pleasant  monotony.  A  little  Lulworth  girl, 
twelve  years  old,  the  daughter  of  Captain  Lecky  of 


MILESTONES  59 

the  coast  guard,  slipped  over  a  cliff  three  hundred 
and  eighty  feet  high,  falling  on  a  rough  pebbly  shore, 
and  sustaining  no  other  injury  than  a  broken  ankle. 
The  two  surgeons  attended  the  child  who  was  so  hard 
to  kill,  and  vouched  for  her  recovery.  Sometimes  the 
exigencies  of  British  decorum  bore  heavily  on  the 
roving  American.  Dr.  White  was  not  wont  to  go  to 
church,  and  his  laxness  in  this  regard  startled  Mr. 
Treves's  little  daughters,  who  had  attached  them- 
selves ardently  to  their  father's  friend.  For  weeks 
they  asked  no  questions,  and  then  curiosity  and 
desire  got  the  better  of  politeness.  "Why  don't  you 
ever  come  to  church  with  us?"  said  the  younger  and 
bolder  child.  "Because,  my  dear,"  was  the  sober 
answer,  "  I  promised  my  mother  that  I  never  would." 
The  summer  of  1894  stands  out  from  the  rolling 
years  because  it  was  actually  spent  "at  home,"  —  if 
a  hunter's  camp  in  the  Rockies  can  be  so  described. 
Lured  by  the  seductive  narratives  of  Dr.  Charles  B. 
Penrose,  and  dazzled  by  his  exploits,  Dr.  and  Mrs. 
White  forswore  civilization  for  three  months,  and 
fled  to  the  wilderness  with  a  train  of  five  saddle- 
horses,  eleven  pack-horses,  two  admirable  guides, 
and  a  bad  cook.  Their  first  camp  was  pitched  by 
Hell  Roaring  Creek,  whose  headlong  falls  were  not 
then  coveted  by  contending  industries;  their  second, 
on  Snake  River  above  Jackson's  Lake.  A  tepee  or 
Indian  lodge,  fifteen  feet  in  diameter  and  fifteen 


60  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

feet  high,  with  three  feet  of  door  and  a  hole  to  let 
out  the  smoke,  made  them  a  dry  and  comfortable 
habitation.  A  cooking  tent,  a  dining  tent,  and  sleep- 
ing tents  for  the  men  completed  then*  quarters.  Their 
principal  avocations  were  fishing  for  reluctant  trout 
(even  the  hungry  and  credulous  lake  trout  scorned 
their  advances),  and  pursuing  the  trail  of  deer  and 
elk  which  seldom  or  never  materialized.  In  the  happy 
absence  of  letters  and  newspapers,  they  were  able  to 
concentrate  then*  attention  upon  matters  at  hand, 
upon  those  few  and  bleak  essentials  which  are  alike 
for  the  savage  and  the  civilized  man. 

The  abundant  entries  in  the  diary  (there  was  time 
and  to  spare  for  writing)  reveal,  not  so  much  enjoy- 
ment, as  a  heroic  determination  to  enjoy.  Dr.  White 
loved  the  long  rough  rides,  the  exhilarating  altitude, 
—  seven  thousand  feet  above  the  sea,  —  the  splen- 
dour of  his  surroundings.  For  a  happy  man,  he  was 
always  singularly  sensitive  to  natural  scenery,  which, 
to  many  of  us,  is  a  solace  reserved  for  old  age  and 
disappointments.  He  was  content  with  the  whole- 
some simplicities  of  a  hunter's  life,  —  bread  and  ba- 
con and  cheese  for  a  noonday  meal,  elk  steaks  and 
onions  at  night.  When  the  butter  grew  strong  enough 
to  "walk  alone,"  he  contentedly  resigned  this  be- 
loved article  of  diet.  He  began  by  bathing  gingerly 
and  by  sections  in  the  ice-cold  mountain  streams, 
and  he  ended,  like  a  good  mountaineer,  by  narrowing 


MILESTONES  61 

the  sections  until  they  reached  "the  nearest  thing  to 
nothing."  He  slept  soundly  in  his  warm  bag,  and 
he  endured,  though  not  with  equanimity,  the  on- 
slaughts of  mosquitoes.  He  let  his  beard  grow,  "the 
ugliest  thing  of  its  age  ever  seen,"  and  he  looked  — 
to  the  dispassionate  eyes  of  his  wife  —  "like  a  cross 
between  Bill  Sikes  and  the  Wandering  Jew." 

But  he  had  a  not  unreasonable  conviction  that 
the  compensation  of  a  hunter's  life  is  hunting;  and 
the  scarcity  of  game,  combined  with  his  own  in- 
expertness,  caused  him  many  disappointments.  He 
records  proudly,  but  soberly,  that  Mrs.  White  sur- 
passed him  as  a  rifle  shot;  and,  indeed,  she  brought 
down  her  first  bull  elk  fifteen  days,  and  her  second 
eight  days,  before  he  shot  his  one  and  only  —  but 
very  handsome  —  specimen.  Her  amazing  pluck, 
energy,  and  fortitude  enabled  her  to  bear  endless 
fatigue  and  exposure.  When  they  changed  camps, 
she  rode  twelve  hours,  climbing  rough  trails,  wading 
deep  fords,  and  coming  in  at  nightfall  "quite  chip- 
per." When  I  add  that  she  learned  to  cook  their 
simple  fare  —  Dr.  White  "couldn't  boil  a  quart  of 
water  without  burning  it"  —  and  to  wash  their 
scanty  outfit,  it  must  be  admitted  that  she  was  the 
better  backwoodsman  of  the  two. 

In  the  Penrose  camp,  all  was  different.  Dr.  Penrose 
was  an  old  hand  at  the  sport.  The  game,  which  so 
gleefully  eluded  Dr.  White,  fell  easy  victims  to  his 


62  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

practised  hand.  The  fish,  when  he  cast  his  fly,  recog- 
nized their  appointed  destiny,  and  rose  briskly  to 
fulfil  it.  Moreover,  he  could  cook,  and  dearly  loved 
this  noble  and  civilizing  art.  He  permitted  Mrs. 
Penrose  to  make  the  coffee,  and  one  of  the  guides 
to  bake  the  bread  and  biscuits;  but  "soups,  meats 
and  fancy  dishes"  he  took  under  his  own  care.  His 
chowders  and  stews  were  so  savoury  that  his  hungry 
friends  offered  him  five  dollars  a  day  to  come  over  to 
then*  camp  and  cook.  The  mere  sight  of  him  flour- 
ishing ladles  and  basting-forks,  and  wiping  these  in- 
struments on  his  buckskin  breeches,  filled  the  on- 
lookers with  admiration  and  with  appetite.  "If  we 
should  run  out  of  provisions  before  the  end  of  the 
summer,"  comments  Dr.  White  musingly,  "those 
buckskins  would  make  rich  nutritious  soup  which 
would  keep  us  all  alive  for  a  week." 

To  the  Penrose  camp  came  hunters  and  trappers, 
friends  of  other  seasons,  who  told  strange  tales  of 
then*  rude,  adventurous  lives.  The  one  who  most 
deeply  interested  the  Whites  was  an  Englishman, 
Richard  Lee,  known  as  "Beaver  Dick,"  who  had 
been  brought  to  this  country  a  child  of  eight,  and 
reared  hi  the  woods  like  a  young  savage.  He  had 
married  two  Indian  wives,  and  he  told  his  sympa- 
thetic listeners  how  he  and  his  first  wife  and  six 
children  had  unwittingly  moved  into  a  cabin  where 
there  had  been  a  case  of  smallpox;  in  consequence 


MILESTONES  63 

of  which  mishap  he  had,  as  he  feelingly  expressed  it, 
"lost  the  whole  damn  outfit  in  a  week."  His  second 
wife,  "Suse,"  was  a  capable  treasure  of  a  woman,  a 
true  helpmate,  with  all  the  useful  arts  of  savagery 
and  civilization  at  her  finger-ends. 

On  the  whole,  the  camping  summer  was  a  satis- 
factory one,  —  an  interesting  thing  to  have  done. 
Dr.  White  never  regretted  the  experience,  and  never 
repeated  it. 


CHAPTER  VI 
THE  YEARS  THAT  COUNT 

WHILE  the  summers  sped  smoothly  by,  the 
winters  in  Philadelphia  were  rough,  tumul- 
tuous, and  triumphant.  In  February,  1889,  Dr.  White 
was  elected  to  the  chair  of  Clinical  Surgery  hi  the 
University  of  Pennsylvania.  His  eminence  in  his 
profession  was  undisputed,  and  it  was  with  the  voice 
of  authority  that  he  upheld  two  great  and  sorely 
needed  reforms,  —  the  Medical  Examiners'  Bill,  and 
the  four  years'  course  for  medical  students.  The  bill, 
which  aimed  at  protecting  the  public  from  ignorant 
practitioners,  was  warmly  supported  by  Dr.  Agnew 
and  Dr.  Pepper.  It  is  amazing  to  reflect  upon  the 
indifference  of  the  general  public  thirty  years  ago  as 
to  the  fitness  of  the  young  men  turned  out  from 
cheap  schools,  and  permitted  to  practise  upon  the 
public.  Sir  Walter  Scott  once  found  a  Scottish  black- 
smith parading  as  a  doctor  in  an  English  village. 
When  he  remonstrated  with  the  man  upon  his  in- 
iquitous conduct,  and  asked  him  if  he  did  not  some- 
times kill  his  patients,  the  loyal  Caledonian  answered 
composedly:  "Oh,  aye,  maybe  sae.  Whiles  they  die, 
and  whiles  no;  but  it's  the  will  o'  Providence.  Ony 
how,  your  Honour,  it  wad  be  lang  before  it  makes 


THE  YEARS  THAT  COUNT      65 

up  for  Flodden."  In  much  the  same  spirit,  a  host  of 
stalwart  young  blunderers  gave  to  an  American  pub- 
lic the  benefit  of  their  comprehensive  ignorance. 

There  was  no  great  difficulty  in  pushing  the  bill 
through  the  state  legislature;  but  what  Agnew  and 
Pepper  and  White  had  never  anticipated  was  the  claim 
made  by  Homceopathists  and  Eclectics  to  an  equal 
representation  on  the  board.  There  were  then  in 
Pennsylvania  about  seven  thousand  allopathic,  seven 
hundred  homoeopathic,  and  three  hundred  eclectic 
physicians.  An  amendment  to  the  bill  provided  that 
the  Governor  should  not  appoint  on  the  board  of 
examiners  a  majority  of  any  one  school.  It  was  car- 
ried, —  some  shadowy  notion  of  fair  play  to  the 
under  dog  influencing  our  kind-hearted  lawgivers. 
The  consequence  was  that  the  irregulars  had  a  work- 
ing majority  over  the  regulars,  who  naturally  did 
not  like  it.  Those  were  days  when  the  rival  schools 
"fought  bitter  and  regular  like  man  and  wife." 
There  was  no  pretence  of  accommodation  on  one 
side,  or  smiling  indifference  on  the  other. 

As  for  the  four  years'  course  of  study,  the  argu- 
ments against  it  were  all  purely  and  frankly  senti- 
mental. Such  legislature,  it  was  urged,  was  aimed  at 
the  poor  boy  who  could  not  afford  to  spend  four  years 
in  a  medical  school.  It  favoured  the  rich  man's  son 
to  whom  time  and  money  meant  nothing.  It  was  un- 
fair and  tyrannous  to  students  in  needy  circum- 


66  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

stances.  No  one,  it  will  be  observed,  wasted  a  thought 
upon  the  patients  (poor  enough  often)  whom  these 
half-trained  young  men  were  going  to  assist  to  their 
graves.  Dr.  Roberts  Bartholow  of  Jefferson  College 
was  of  the  opinion  that  a  two  years'  course  would 
be  quite  long  enough,  because,  as  he  naively  said, 
a  student's  real  education  came  after  he  had  grad- 
uated. In  other  words,  he  would  be  taught  by  his 
failures,  —  a  consoling  reflection.  Dr.  James  E. 
Garretson  of  the  Medico-Chirurgical  Hospital  de- 
nounced all  measures  of  reform.  He  did  not  want  a 
board  of  examiners.  He  did  not  want  a  four  years' 
course  of  study.  He  wanted  things  to  be  just  as  they 
had  always  been.  On  the  other  hand,  Dr.  J.  W. 
Holland,  Dean  of  Jefferson,  and  Dr.  Clara  Marshall, 
Dean  of  the  Woman's  Medical  College,  emphatically 
supported  the  four  years'  course.  It  may  be  observed 
that  England  at  this  time  required  four  years  of 
study,  and  France,  five;  while,  in  the  United  States, 
Kentucky  had  a  medical  school  which  graduated  a 
student  in  nine  months;  and  Tennessee  and  Georgia 
were  little  more  exacting.  It  was  high  time  that 
American  physicians  took  a  stand  against  such  per- 
ilous inefficiency.  Dr.  White,  who  held  his  profession 
in  honour,  and  who  heartily  mistrusted  the  line  of 
least  resistance,  worked  unceasingly  for  a  higher 
level  of  attainment.  Six  years  later,  we  find  him  writ- 
ing to  the  "University  Courier"  a  spirited  defence 


THE  YEARS  THAT  COUNT      67 

of  the  new  entrance  examinations  demanded  by  the 
Medical  Department  of  the  University,  —  examina- 
tions which  were  thought  by  many  to  be  needlessly 
severe.  "If  there  should  arise,"  he  said,  "as  a  result 
of  this  advancement  in  entrance  requirements,  any 
necessity  for  a  choice  between  a  class  of  four  or  five 
-hundred  men,  well  prepared  for  the  work  of  their 
lives,  and  a  class  of  eight  or  nine  hundred  of  infe- 
rior scientific  attainments,  I  am  confident  that  the 
Faculty  would  unhesitatingly  accept  the  former  al- 
ternative, and  would  be  upheld  in  that  position  by 
the  Trustees,  with  whom  the  final  decision  must 
rest." 

The  same  winter  which  witnessed  Dr.  White's 
advancement  in  the  University  saw  him  waging  a 
brave  but  losing  battle  for  his  position  as  chief  of  the 
surgical  staff  of  the  Philadelphia  Hospital.  It  is  a 
curious  story  of  political  intrigue  and  personal  ani- 
mosity. Dr.  James  W.  White,  Senior,  had  served  for 
years  as  president  of  the  Board  of  Charities  and  Cor- 
rection. From  this  thankless  and  onerous  post  he 
was  summarily  dismissed,  "without  executive  com- 
ment," by  Mayor  Fitler,  who  ruled  the  city  pater- 
nally, and  was  averse  to  giving  reasons  for  his  acts. 
An  angry  correspondence  ensued.  The  Mayor,  en- 
trenched in  authority,  and  outraged  by  the  comments 
of  Dr.  J.  William  White,  Junior,  promptly  demanded 
his  resignation  from  the  staff  of  the  Philadelphia 


68  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

Hospital.  With  equal  promptness  and  superior 
vigour,  Dr.  White  refused  to  resign;  whereupon  the 
Mayor  called  upon  the  directors  of  the  Board  of 
Charities  and  Correction  to  dismiss  the  recalcitrant 
surgeon.  A  fearful  fracas  followed.  The  press  con- 
demned municipal  despotism,  and  printed  cartoons 
of  Fitler  hi  crown  and  ermine  robes.  The  University 
students  and  the  students  who  attended  the  Phila- 
delphia Hospital  clinics  made  noisy  demonstrations 
in  favour  of  their  instructor.  But  the  directors,  or  at 
least  three  out  of  the  five,  did  as  they  were  bidden. 
Dr.  Richard  A.  Cleeman  supported  Dr.  WTiite.  Mr. 
Richard  McMurtrie  refused  to  vote.  Five  other  Uni- 
versity physicians  were  retired  at  the  same  time,  and 
their  places  filled  by  men  from  Jefferson  College  and 
the  Medico-Chirurgical.  Dr.  H.  R.  Wharton,  who 
was  elected  to  fill  Dr.  White's  position,  flatly  refused 
to  accept  it.  Four  years  later,  Dr.  White  was  rein- 
stated in  his  post  amid  clamorous  rejoicings,  and  he 
held  it  until  1898,  when  his  ever  increasing  duties  at 
the  University  compelled  him  to  reluctantly  resign. 

In  April,  1890,  Dr.  White  contributed  to  the  "  Med- 
ical News"  an  article  recommending  the  electric 
chair  in  place  of  the  gallows.  It  is  a  strong  argument, 
and,  what  is  more,  a  readable  paper,  showing  that 
curious  literary  twist  which  he  was  wont  to  give  to 
subjects  seemingly  remote  from  literature.  It  also 
reveals  a  relentless  common  sense,  sharply  at  va- 


THE  YEARS  THAT  COUNT      69 

riance  with  the  sentimentality  then  beginning  to  dom- 
inate a  restless,  anxious,  and  humane  public.  He  ad- 
vocates electricity  because  it  is  less  terrifying  and 
painful  to  the  criminal.  But  he  advocates  it  still  more 
urgently  because  the  brutality  of  hanging,  and  its 
sinister  associations,  influence  juries  to  acquit,  and 
governors  to  pardon.  "Punishment,"  he  says  truly, 
"is  a  deterrent  influence  in  proportion  to  its  certainty, 
not  its  severity."  His  association  with  the  Peniten- 
tiary had  given  him  an  insight  into  that  direful  thing, 
the  criminal  mind,  and  had  convinced  him  that  the 
most  powerful  influence  to  control  it  is  a  reasonable 
fear  of  the  law,  and  of  the  consequences  of  breaking 
the  law.  He  agrees  with  Dr.  Holmes's  verdict:  "Noth- 
ing stands  hi  the  way  of  the  selfish  motive  which 
leads  to  crime  except  some  stronger  selfish  motive." 
He  quotes  with  relish  a  passage  from  an  intercepted 
letter  written  by  a  convict  in  Australia  (where  a 
murderous  assault  upon  a  warden  was  at  that  time  a 
capital  offence)  to  a  fellow  cracksman  at  home. "They 
top"  (hang)  "a  cove  out  here  for  slogging  a  bloke. 
That  bit  of  rope,  dear  Jack,  is  a  great  check  on  a 
man's  temper."  1 

In  November,  1890,  the  first  importation  of  Dr. 
Robert  Koch's  famous  "lymph"  reached  Philadel- 
phia. The  press  and  public  were  greatly  agitated 

1  The  Punishment  and  Prevention  of  Crime.  By  Colonel  Sir  Edmund 
Du  Cane,  Inspector  of  Prisons  in  Great  Britain. 


70  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

over  its  arrival;  the  physicians,  cautious  and  reserved. 
The  five  members  of  the  Philadelphia  Tuberculosis 
Commission,  to  whom  was  entrusted  the  handling  of 
the  new  remedy,  were  Dr.  William  Pepper,  Dr.  James 
Tyson,  Dr.  John  Musser,  Dr.  White,  and  Dr.  John 
Guiteras,  who  had  gone  over  to  Germany  to  study 
its  use,  and  was  still  in  Berlin.  There  was  a  painful 
rush  to  the  hospitals  of  patients  eager  for  the  magic 
cure,  yet  so  unreasonably  alarmed  that,  after  the 
first  injection,  many  refused  a  second,  and  many 
more  a  third.  Eight  cases  were  selected  for  treatment 
at  the  University  Hospital,  those  of  lupus  being  as- 
signed to  Dr.  WTiite.  Reporters,  who  had  hitherto 
been  restricted  to  glimpses  of  the  little  tubes  filled 
with  reddish-brown  liquid,  were  admitted  to  the 
operating-room;  and  one  of  them,  true  to  his  training, 
described  with  accuracy  and  animation  the  rings  on 
the  fingers  of  a  female  patient.  The  lymph  brought 
nothing  but  disappointment  to  the  sick,  and  to  the 
less  sanguine  physicians.  Confidence  waned  steadily 
until  its  flickering  gleams  died  in  a  dead  level  of 
despondency.  There  are  few  things  sadder  than  the 
long  story  of  "cures"  for  the  incurables.  Hope  dies 
so  hard,  and  human  beings  so  easily. 

In  the  spring  of  1891,  Dr.  William  Pepper's  gen- 
erous gift  of  fifty  thousand  dollars  to  the  permanent 
endowment  fund  of  the  Medical  Department  of  the 
University,  and  the  ready  assistance  proffered  by 


THE  YEARS  THAT  COUNT      71 

Dr.  Agnew,  Dr.  White,  Dr.  William  Goodell,  and  Dr. 
H.  C.  Wood,  relieved  the  school  from  financial  strain, 
raised  its  standard,  and  insured  the  four  years' 
course,  so  essential  to  its  dignity  and  usefulness. 
The  following  March,  Dr.  Agnew  died,  full  of  years 
and  honours,  leaving  behind  him  a  name  cherished 
by  friends,  and  reverenced  by  his  profession.  A  year 
later  Dr.  White  was  elected  patron  of  the  D.  Hayes 
Agnew  Surgical  Society.  It  was  a  responsibility  he 
did  not  covet,  and  an  honour  he  could  not  refuse.  He 
was  formally  installed  at  the  annual  dinner  of  the 
society  in  the  Bellevue-Stratford,  and  the  enthusiasm 
which  greeted  him  expressed  alike  the  pride  the  city 
took  in  his  achievements,  and  the  warm  affection  of 
his  friends.  His  speech  on  this  occasion,  as  on  all  other 
occasions,  had  that  ring  of  candour,  of  straight  and 
strong  sincerity,  which  never  failed  to  reach  his 
hearers'  hearts.  He  summed  up  the  experience  of 
forty-three  years  when  he  said,  "I  have  been  reason- 
ably successful  in  life;  but  I  have  always  felt  in  my 
own  case  the  truth  of  Dr.  Franklin's  words,  that,  if 
men  are  honest,  they  will  admit  that  their  success  is 
more  of  a  marvel  to  themselves  than  it  can  ever  be 
to  others." 

An  instance  of  undoubted  success,  which  surprised 
no  one,  was  the  reception  accorded  to  "The  Ameri- 
can Text-Book  of  Surgery,"  edited  by  Dr.  W.  W. 
Keen  and  Dr.  White,  and  published  in  1893.  It  was 


72  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

immediately  adopted  by  forty-nine  medical  schools 
and  colleges,  including  the  Kansas  City  Homreo- 
pathic  Medical  College,  which  knew  a  good  thing 
when  it  saw  one.  Australia  welcomed  the  book  warmly, 
and  its  steady  sales  compelled  its  editors  to  issue,  three 
years  later,  a  new  and  revised  edition. 

In  the  summer  of  1895,  Dr.  and  Mrs.  White  went 
to  Spain  and  southern  France.  On  the  voyage  to 
Gibraltar  they  encountered  Mr.  John  Sargent,  the 
artist;  and  an  acquaintance  begun  over  a  game  of 
chess,  the  "glad  conquest"  of  a  summer  hour,  rip- 
ened into  a  warm  and  lifelong  friendship.  Together 
they  travelled  to  Tangiers  and  to  Granada,  where 
Sargent  lingered  while  the  more  impetuous  tourists 
speeded  on  then*  way.  He  had  come  to  Spain  to  make 
studies  of  the  Spanish  Madonnas;  and  although  no 
word  of  his  could  open  Dr.  White's  eyes  and  heart  to 
the  beauty  of  Murillo  (a  love  for  whom  is  one  of  life's 
benefactions),  and  although  no  argument  of  the  doc- 
tor's could  arouse  in  the  artist's  soul  a  true  eager- 
ness for  athletics,  the  two  men  had,  nevertheless,  a 
hearty  enjoyment  of  each  other's  companionship.  It 
is  amusing  to  note  that  when,  hi  1898,  Dr.  White's 
enthusiasm  for  cycling  had  reached  its  lieight,  he 
actually  bullied  Sargent  into  buying  a  new  wheel, 
declaring,  on  the  authority  of  a  surgeon,  that  his 
friend  was  "soft  and  in  need  of  exercise."  The  follow- 
ing summer,  golf  was  his  ruling  passion;  and  the  poor 


THE  YEARS  THAT  COUNT      73 

artist,  having  come  trustfully  to  visit  him  at  Barton 
Court,  was  sent  at  once  around  the  links  with  Mrs. 
White  as  an  instructor.  "It  would  be  a  good  thing 
for  him  if  he  should  come  to  like  it,"  writes  the  doctor 
with  enchanting  seriousness  in  his  diary. 

It  was  in  the  spring  of  this  year,  1899,  that  the 
report  of  Mr.  Sargent's  death  in  London  had  reached 
the  United  States,  and,  before  there  was  time  to  con- 
tradict it,  the  American  newspapers  snatched  their 
chance  to  print  long-cherished  portraits,  and  ex- 
haustive notices  of  his  work.  Fatigue  in  connection 
with  the  Royal  Academy  Hanging  Committee  was 
given  as  the  somewhat  inadequate  cause  of  death. 
"Expired  after  a  brief  illness  at  the  house  of  his  son,'* 
was  the  headline  to  which  the  great  artist  took,  as 
an  unmarried  man,  especial  exception.  "Had  I  died 
anywhere,"  he  said  virtuously,  "it  would  not  have 
been  in  the  house  of  a  son." 

Dr.  White's  friendship  with  Mr.  Edwin  Abbey  was 
as  warm  and  as  constant  as  his  friendship  with  Mr. 
Sargent.  He  never  went  to  England  without  paying 
a  brief  visit  to  Morgan  Hall  at  Fairf  ord,  where  Abbey 
had  built  a  studio  "as  big  as  a  barn,"  and  where  in 
1897  he  was  hard  at  work  on  the  "Holy  Grail"  dec- 
orations for  the  Boston  Library.  These  crowded  and 
glowing  canvases,  Dr.  White  pronounces  to  be 
"simply  magnificent";  and  there  is  little  doubt  that 
in  the  artist's  vast  and  empty  studio  they  had  the 


74  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

space  they  need,  and  did  not  appear  to  be  pushing 
the  public  out  of  the  room,  as  they  do  in  their  nar- 
rower confines. 

The  inextinguishable  passion  for  athletics  coloured 
Dr.  White's  life,  affording  him  the  pleasures  of  his 
youth,  the  enthusiasms  of  his  middle  age,  and  the 
adamantine  convictions  which  lasted  until  his  death. 
The  summer  of  1896  was  spent  in  New  England,  and 
he  had  the  supreme  satisfaction  of  witnessing  the 
Newport  swimming  feats  of  Mr.  Peter  McNally,  Mr. 
Charles  Oelrichs,  and  Mr.  Robert  Ralston.  They 
interested  him  all  the  more  deeply  because,  sixteen 
years  earlier,  he  himself  had  covered  the  course  now 
mapped  out  for  one  of  the  younger  athletes.  In  Sep- 
tember, 1880,  he  swam  from  the  Spring  Wharf,  New- 
port, across  the  harbour,  past  Fort  Adams  WTiarf ,  and 
south  of  Beaver  Tail  to  the  head  of  Narragansett 
Pier  Beach.  The  distance  was  nine  miles,  the  day 
chill  and  windy,  the  time  four  hours  and  fifty  min- 
utes. Twice  during  the  swim,  a  raw  egg  and  a  dash  of 
sherry  was  handed  out  to  him  from  the  accompany- 
ing boat.  Even  at  forty-six,  though  he  could  no  longer 
repeat  the  triumphs  of  his  youth,  he  took  part  in 
a  genial  game  devised  by  Mr.  Oelrichs,  and  called 
"Angling  for  Men."  The  swimmer  was  attached  to 
a  stout  line  which  did  not  interfere  with  his  motions. 
If  he  were  hauled  by  the  anglers  into  the  boat,  he 
lost  his  game.  If  he  successfully  resisted  them,  he 


THE  YEARS  THAT  COUNT      75 

won.  Mr.  Belmont,  Mr.  Theodore  Havemeyer,  and 
Mr.  James  Kernochan  angled  thirty-eight  minutes 
for  Dr.  White,  while  the  gray-haired  and  distin- 
guished surgeon  plunged,  gambolled,  and  strained 
in  the  heaving  waters.  He  was  dragged  to  within  a 
hundred  feet  of  the  anchored  boat,  but  not  close 
enough  to  be  landed.  It  was  an  engaging  sport. 

To  a  man  so  deeply  concerned  with  every  form  of 
exercise,  the  college  football  games  were  necessarily 
matters  of  vital  interest.  As  surgeon  for  the  Pennsyl- 
vania team,  Dr.  White  stood  responsible  for  the 
men's  physical  condition;  as  a  most  loyal  son  of  the 
University,  their  victories  filled  him  with  elation, 
their  defeats  with  gloom.  The  controversy  over  pre- 
liminary training  raged  hotly  in  the  autumn  of  1896. 
The  Pennsylvania  men  were  taken  in  the  summer  to 
Long  Island  for  three  weeks'  practice.  Harvard,  Yale, 
and  Princeton  had  abandoned  this  system,  though 
their  teams  met  occasionally  in  the  holidays  to  "try 
out."  Mr.  Caspar  Whitney,  writing  in  "Harper's 
Weekly,"  attacked  the  summer  training  as  savour- 
ing unduly  of  professionalism.  Mr.  Henry  Geyelin, 
Mr.  John  Bell,  Mr.  George  Wharton  Pepper,  and 
Dr.  White  defended  it  vigorously,  not  only  because 
it  put  the  men  in  good  shape,  but  because  it  saved 
time  and  fatigue  when  they  were  back  in  college.  A 
vast  deal  of  comment,  not  unmixed  with  acrimony, 
was  expended  on  this  dispute.  Those  were  care-free 


76  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

days.  We  look  back  on  them  now  very  much  as 
Pandora  might,  in  her  old  age,  have  looked  back 
upon  the  smiling,  frolicsome  years  when  the  box-lid 
was  shut  down,  and  no  troubles  had  been  let  loose 
upon  the  world. 

As  for  the  safety-loving  people,  the  pacifists  of  that 
time,  who  condemned  football  in  toto  as  a  brutal  and 
dangerous  game,  Dr.  White  entertained  for  them  a 
sincere  and  outspoken  contempt.  Their  point  of  view 
was  alien  to  his  spirit.  He  knew  that  in  England, 
as  well  as  in  the  United  States,  there  were  men  and 
women  who  held  these  unworthy  opinions;  and  he 
was  much  comforted  by  a  letter  from  Treves,  de- 
fending football,  not  only  as  one  of  the  best  and 
bravest,  but  as  one  of  the  safest  of  sports.  "More 
lads  die  from  loafing  in  a  public  house  on  Saturday 
afternoons,"  wrote  the  British  surgeon,  "than  ever 
die  from  playing  football  one  afternoon  in  the  week. 
I  played  every  Saturday  during  the  season  until  I 
was  twenty-one.  I  was  a  member  of  the  Hospital 
team,  and  we  played  in  only  first-class  matches.  I 
can  recollect  hi  all  this  time  only  two  cases  of  con- 
cussion, two  broken  legs,  and  some  broken  ribs.  As 
for  myself,  I  broke  two  metacarpal  bones,  and  that 
was  all.  Put  these  broken  bones  on  the  debit  side,  and 
then  try  to  estimate  what  must  be  written  on  the 
credit  side.  To  drive  through  the  streets  in  a  hansom 
cab  is  more  dangerous  than  to  play  football  matches,'* 


THE  YEARS  THAT  COUNT      77 

There  are  readers  to  whom  Treves's  list  of  casual- 
ties suggests  the  philosophic  attitude  of  a  country- 
woman who  was  asked  if  she  did  not  find  an  unpro- 
tected well-curb  a  bit  dangerous  for  her  large  family 
of  children.  "Well,  no,"  she  said  thoughtfully,  "not 
so  bad  as  you  might  think.  We've  lived  here  nigh  on 
to  seven  years,  and  have  lost  only  two  of  'em." 

But,  after  all,  to  inquire  too  curiously  into  dangers, 
to  count  too  closely  the  cost  of  all  we  do,  is  a  dis- 
quieting and  a  withering  process.  We  lose  a  great 
deal,  and  —  such  is  the  irony  of  fate  —  we  are  not 
sure  of  saving  anything.  There  is  a  satisfactory  little 
poem  of  Bret  Harte's,  in  which  the  man  who  dares 
not  hunt  lest  he  be  hurt,  and  who  dares  not  sail  lest 
he  be  drowned,  stays  at  home,  and  is  swallowed  up 
in  an  earthquake.  Dr.  White's  simple  and  brave 
philosophy  was  proof  against  every  form  of  panic. 
He  gave  it  voice  at  the  reception  offered  by  the  Mask 
and  Wig  Club  to  the  Pennsylvania  football  team,  in 
November,  1898.  It  had  been  a  hard  season,  and  the 
Thanksgiving  game  which  closed  it  had  been  played 
—  and  well  played  —  hi  the  teeth  of  a  furious  storm. 
I  quote  a  portion  of  Dr.  White's  speech  on  this  occa- 
sion, because  it  expresses  with  animation  and  sin- 
cerity his  lifelong  point  of  view: 

"Last  Thursday  gave  apparent  support  to  those 
who  object  to  football  on  account  of  the  exposure  it 
involves;  and  the  game,  from  that  standpoint,  will 


78  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

probably  never  have  a  more  severe  test.  This  is  the 
only  time  I  have  seen  it  played  under  such  circum- 
stances, and  it  is  unlikely  that  it  will  be  so  played 
again.  I  therefore  regard  Thursday  as  a  supreme  test 
of  the  sincerity  of  my  own  convictions,  and  I  have 
thought  much  and  seriously  on  the  matter  since  then. 
During  the  whole  game  a  driving  gale  was  blowing 
from  the  northwest,  carrying  with  it  rain  and  snow. 
The  field  was  a  quagmire  of  ice-cold  mud  and  snow, 
with  pools  of  icy  water  on  the  surface.  In  five  min- 
utes every  man  was  soaked  to  the  skin,  and  kis 
clothes  weighed  many  pounds  more  than  when  he 
put  them  on.  The  first  half  lasted  for  more  than  an 
hour,  and  the  work  was  hard  and  exhausting.  We 
must  also  take  into  account  the  dispiriting  influence 
of  an  adverse  score. 

"The  newspapers  have  not  exaggerated  the  ap- 
parently appalling  condition  of  the  men  at  the  end 
of  this  half.  Many  of  them  were  shaking  so  that  they 
could  not  give  the  least  aid  toward  getting  off  their 
wet  clothes;  could  not  carry  their  hands  to  their 
mouths  with  the  hot  soup  which  was  given  them; 
could  not  talk  intelligibly  for  the  chattering  of  then* 
teeth;  could  scarcely  feel  the  vigorous  chafing  of  then* 
hands  and  feet. 

"I  should  be  opposed  to  subjecting  them  again  to 
such  suffering  (it  went  far  beyond  discomfort).  I 
should  be  opposed  to  risk  losing  a  game  by  the  toss 


THE  YEARS  THAT  COUNT      79 

of  a  coin,  when  well-earned  victory  means  so  much 
to  all  Pennsylvanians.  I  thought  for  a  few  moments 
that,  as  football  players,  the  team  was  done  for  that 
day.  But  I  never  for  a  moment,  after  looking  them 
over,  felt  anxiety  as  to  the  ultimate  effect  upon  their 
health.  We  know  that  men  in  such  condition,  with 
their  vitality  so  strong  and  their  power  of  resistance 
at  so  high  a  level,  repel,  not  only  cold  and  fatigue, 
which  are  of  minor  importance,  but  those  forms  of 
infection  which,  favoured  by  cold  and  fatigue,  are 
potent,  in  the  presence  of  low  vitality  and  dimin- 
ished resistant  power,  to  produce  fever,  pneumonia, 
grippe,  and  other  diseases. 

"The  reasons  for  my  unshaken  confidence  in  Penn- 
sylvania spirit  and  pluck  are  obvious.  I  have  many 
times  admired  the  men  who  represent  us  on  the  foot- 
ball field;  but  never  so  deeply  as  on  last  Thursday, 
when  those  eleven  frozen,  purple,  shivering,  chatter- 
ing players,  after  a  brief  ten  minutes  spent  in  trying  to 
get  warm,  went  out  again  into  that  storm,  overcame 
an  adverse  score,  and  wrested  victory  from  the  hands 
of  worthy  and  formidable  opponents.  They  deserve  to 
be  honoured,  not  only  by  every  Pennsylvanian,  but 
by  every  one  who  loves  manliness  and  courage." 

It  is  little  wonder  that  this  kind  of  eloquence, 
simple,  sincere,  plain-spoken,  found  its  way  to  the 
student's  heart.  It  is  little  wonder  that  "Doctor 
Bill "  is  still  a  name  to  conjure  by.  No  one  who  has 


80  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

heard  the  victorious  team  stand  cheering  on  an  au- 
tumn night  before  the  surgeon's  door,  no  one  who 
has  listened  to  the  long-drawn  cry  — 

Ra,  ra,  ra, 
Penn-syl-va-ni-a, 
White!  White!  White!  — 

can  doubt  the  place  he  held. 

Two  months  after  this  memorable  Thanksgiving 
game,  Dr.  White  went  to  Boston  to  address  the  New 
England  Alumni  Society  of  the  University  of  Penn- 
sylvania. On  this  occasion  he  delivered  a  glowing 
eulogy  upon  Benjamin  Franklin,  —  as  an  athlete. 
With  a  hardihood  of  imagination  which  we  cannot 
sufficiently  admire,  he  pictured  "Poor  Richard"  as 
contemplating  with  especial  gratification  the  foot- 
ball games.  "The  man  who  prided  himself  in  his 
youth  on  his  swimming,  and  on  his  ability  to  carry 
a  printer's  'form*  in  each  hand,  while  his  fellow 
workmen  could  carry  but  one,  the  man  who  made 
athletic  sports  an  integral  part  of  his  proposed  cur- 
riculum for  the  Academy,  would  not  only  rejoice  to 
have  *  Franklin  Field'  named  after  him,  but  would 
join  with  us  in  our  enthusiasm  over  the  victories 
won  on  that  and  other  fields  by  the  representatives 
of  Pennsylvania." 

This  is  an  original  point  of  view.  Franklin  was  so 
many  things,  —  statesman,  scientist,  philosopher, 
and  economist,  that  his  athletic  side  has  been  ob- 


THE  YEARS  THAT  COUNT      81 

scured  by  time.  It  is  hard  to  fancy  him  cheering, 
whooping,  and  waving  his  respectable  hat  as  the 
Quakers  rush  to  goal. 

And  swimming?  What  did  Franklin  know  of  that 
noble  art  as  practised  by  a  modern  enthusiast?  Many 
of  Dr.  White's  summer  diaries  read  like  the  records 
of  a  merman.  If  he  were  within  reach  of  the  sea,  he 
spent  more  time  in  it  than  out  of  it.  There  is  some- 
thing so  monotonous  in  these  perpetual  immersions, 
that  no  terrestrial  reader  can  fail  to  enjoy  his  lament- 
able experiences  in  Holland.  Thither  he  went  with 
Treves  in  August,  1898,  confidently  hoping  that  in 
this  level  and  sea-girt  land  they  could  cycle  and 
bathe,  cycle  and  bathe,  cycle  and  bathe,  through  the 
long,  hot,  happy  days.  Save  in  the  matter  of  heat, 
they  found  themselves  mistaken.  The  tideless  and 
filthy  waters  of  the  Zuyder  Zee  repelled  even  their 
ardour.  At  Zandvoort  they  joyfully  essayed  the  lap- 
ping waters  of  the  North  Sea,  and  were  so  badly 
stung  by  jelly  fish  that  the  two  surgeons  were  ill  for 
several  days.  Mrs.  White  escaped  more  lightly.  Fi- 
nally at  Scheveningen,  where  the  wide,  hospitable  surf 
invited  their  advances,  they  found,  first,  that  after 
4  P.M.  no  one  was  permitted  to  bathe  at  all;  second, 
that  an  hour's  wait  for  a  bathing-house  was  the  pre- 
liminary of  every  dip;  and  third,  that  when  they 
ventured  out  to  their  arm-pits  hi  a  smooth  sea,  a 
"life-guard"  shouted  and  blew  his  horn  to  bring 


8$  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

them  back  to  land.  If  they  did  not  at  once  return, 
he  waded  out  and  "rescued"  them.  It  was  a  humil- 
iating experience  for  a  man  who  had  swum  from 
Newport  to  Narragansett  Beach  to  have  a  Dutch 
official,  decorated  with  a  life-saving  medal,  play  the 
Newfoundland  dog  trick  with  him  in  safe  and  quiet 
waters.  Dr.  White's  language  on  this  occasion  was 
so  vitriolic  that  Treves  urged  him  to  publish  an 
"English  and  Gehennese  Phrase-Book,"  which  should 
meet  all  such  emergencies,  and  help  the  inarticulate 
tourist  on  his  way.  It  was  to  begin  with  familiar 
colloquialisms,  such  as  "What  the  Hell,"  "How  the 
Hell,"  "  Where  the  Hell,"  "  Who  the  Hell,"  "Why  the 
Hell,"  and  after  translating  these  into  divers  tongues, 
was  to  advance  by  degrees  to  more  fervid  and  com- 
plicated utterances. 

Perhaps  it  may  be  well  to  say  here  that  swear- 
ing was  never  for  Dr.  White  "the  riotous  medium  of 
the  under-languaged."  His  vocabulary  was  large,  his 
speech  was  trenchant.  He  was  well  aware  that  the 
value  of  an  oath  lies  in  its  timeliness  and  its  rarity. 
Repeated  too  often,  it  sinks  into  mere  drivel,  and  the 
most  tiresome  form  of  drivel.  If,  as  we  are  told,  "the 
inspired  pen  of  John  Masefield  has  made  lyric  poetry 
blossom  with  both  wild  and  cultivated  profanity," 
these  flowers  of  speech  owe  their  vigour  and  their 
colour  to  a  process  of  selection.  Mr.  Masefield,  al- 
though his  diction,  like  his  versification,  is  ungirt, 


THE  YEARS  THAT  COUNT      83 

has  never  permitted  himself  to  run  amuck  through 
blasphemy.  The  quickness  of  Dr.  White's  temper 
and  his  habitual  impatience  inclined  him  to  strong 
language.  His  love  for  every  form  of  outdoor  exercise 
insured  for  him  a  constant  variety  of  provocation. 
Take  golf  alone,  which  Mr.  William  Lyon  Phelps 
says  is,  next  to  the  telephone,  the  greatest  incentive 
to  swearing.  "The  disappointments  of  golf  are  so 
immediate,  so  unexpected,  so  overwhelming.  They 
make  taciturn  gentlemen  as  efficient  as  teamsters." 
Now  Dr.  White  began  to  play  golf  when  he  was  in 
his  fiftieth  year;  and  while  this  game  is  Heaven's  gift 
to  the  middle-aged  and  the  elderly,  they  seldom  excel 
in  it  unless  they  have  practised  it  in  their  youth. 
There  is  a  world  of  pent-up  bitterness  in  this  extract 
from  one  of  the  pages  of  his  English  diary: 

"July  20th:  Letty  and  I  played  golf  all  day  long. 
I  felt  much  encouraged  yesterday,  but  dropped  back 
to-day.  This  place  [Barton  Court]  is  certainly  ideal 
for  an  impatient  or  a  nervous  beginner,  because 
there  are  no  lookers-on.  We  buy  new  clubs  all  the 
time,  on  the  theory  that  there  must  be  something 
wrong  with  our  old  ones." 

Two  days  later,  as  a  consequence  of  these  per- 
severing endeavours,  he  developed  an  abscess  on  the 
palm  of  his  right  hand,  and  could  not  play  at  all.  If 
there  is  never  any  excuse  for  profanity,  there  are 
sometimes  reasonable  explanations. 


84  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

No  provocation,  however,  could  wrest  from  Dr. 
White  an  infant  oath  if  he  thought  it  unbecoming. 
The  people  whom  he  did  not  wish  to  hear  him  swear 
never  did  hear  him  swear.  There  were  times,  too, 
when  fatigue  and  a  rare  dejection  robbed  profanity 
of  all  savour.  "I  am  evidently  doing  what  is  known 
as  'ageing,'  "  he  wrote  me  once  when  I  was  in  Rome. 
"I  heard  with  a  shock  last  week  that  my  language 
on  the  golf  links  had  lost  all  its  vivacity.  Too  bad !  To 
destroy  thus  a  reputation  based  on  years  of  lively 
endeavour.  I  have  n't  forgotten  the  words,  but  they 
don't  seem  to  come  as  easily  as  they  used  to.  Can  it 
be  that  you  are  undermining  me  by  praying  to  your 
Roman  saints  ?" 

In  one  respect  alone,  the  doctor,  for  all  his  health 
and  strength  and  endurance,  was  physically  ill-fitted 
for  life's  unending  strain.  He  could  work  as  hard  and 
play  as  hard  as  any  man  of  his  years  in  Christendom. 
He  could  swim  like  a  fish,  and  with  little  more  effort 
than  a  fish  might  presumably  make.  He  could  cycle 
a  hundred  miles  in  a  day  without  undue  fatigue.  He 
could  lunch  on  "cakes,  lemon  cheesecakes,  pears, 
plums,  milk  and  cream";  and  this  school-boy  tuck 
gave  him  no  more  uneasiness  at  fifty  than  it  did  at 
fifteen.  But  he  could  not  sleep  unless  sustained  and 
soothing  silence  composed  him  gradually  to  rest.  In 
this  regard  he  was  as  unblest  as  the  great  Wallen- 
stein,  who  pulled  down  all  the  houses  around  his 


THE  YEARS  THAT  COUNT      85 

palace  in  Prague,  so  as  to  insure  for  himself  quiet 
and  slumberous  nights. 

The  summer  of  1899  was  spent  by  Dr.  and  Mrs. 
White,  and  Mr.  and  Mrs.  S.  S.  White,  Junior,  on  the 
English  coast.  Their  days  were  given  over  to  the 
usual  routine  of  outdoor  sports,  and  all  went  merrily 
save  for  the  noises  inseparable  from  hotel  life,  even 
in  England,  where  the  infernal  racket  of  continental 
hostelries  is  happily  unknown.  Finally  at  Sherring- 
ham,  the  clatter  of  housemaids  indoors,  and  ostlers 
out  of  doors,  became  so  annoying  that  Dr.  White 
suddenly  and  wisely  resolved  he  would  have  a  roof 
of  his  own. 

"If  it  were  done  when  't  is  done,  then  't  were  well 
It  were  done  quickly." 

Within  twenty-four  hours  he  had  rented  a  place, 
imported  a  cook  from  Norwich,  picked  up  a  house- 
maid in  some  neighbouring  cottage,  provisioned  the 
party  with  all  things  needful  from  coals  and  candles  to 
sugar  and  suet,  and  dined  comfortably  in  a  house, "  the 
very  existence  of  which  was  unknown  to  us  yesterday." 

This  is  efficiency, — efficiency  which  matches  speed 
with  thoroughness.  What  a  secretary  of  war  Dr. 
White  would  have  made! 

All  was  not  yet  smooth  sailing,  however,  for  the 
intrepid  householder.  After  two  happy  days  and 
tranquil  nights  there  comes  this  spirited  entry  in 
the  diary: 


86  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

"Three  yelping  dogs  broke  our  rest  last  night.  The 
silence  here  is  like  the  silence  of  death  after  6  P.M. 
We  were  all  sleepy,  and  turned  in  before  ten  o'clock. 
About  midnight,  or  earlier,  these  three  curs  over  in 
the  farm-yard  began  to  howl.  At  1  A.M.  the  manly 
form  of  Prof.  William  White  of  Philadelphia,  clad 
in  pyjamas,  and  with  a  flickering  candle  in  his  left 
hand,  might  have  been  seen  standing  in  the  drizzling 
rain,  pounding  on  the  door  of  the  farmer's  cottage, 
and  using  language  which  made  an  area  of  phosphor- 
escence around  the  candle.  As  a  result,  the  three  dogs 
were  locked  up  in  separate  places,  and  a  little  sleep 
was  obtained.  This  morning  I  insisted  that  they 
should  be  sent  off  the  place,  and  I  believe  it  has 
been,  or  is  to  be,  done. 

"I  am  not,  and  I  never  shall  be,  used  to  farm 
noises.  I  wish  the  little  birdies  had  been  created 
dumb.  I  never  could  see  any  sense  in  a  hen  making 

such  a  d fuss  over  every  egg  she  lays;  and  it  seems 

particularly  unreasonable  that,  like  the  females  of 
all  other  species,  she  should  select  such  inconvenient 
hours  for  bringing  her  offspring  into  the  world.  This 
has  been  one  of  the  complaints  of  obstetricians  ever 
since  I  have  known  any  of  them." 

It  is  a  bit  unfair  to  hurl  anathemas  at  hens,  when 
the  cock,  who  has  not  his  partner's  excuse  for  self- 
congratulation,  makes  such  untimely  and  vociferous 
racket.  But  Dr.  White's  reproaches,  however  un- 


THE  YEARS  THAT  COUNT      87 

justified,  seem  to  have  shamed  the  denizens  of  the 
farmyard  into  silence.  Three  days  later  he  reports 
favourably  upon  their  amendment: 

"We've  shaken  down  into  our  places,  and  the 
people  are  used  to  us.  The  dogs  have  been  sent  away; 
the  ducks  have,  I  think,  been  given  laudanum  to 
make  them  sleep  late  hi  the  mornings;  the  hens  now 
cackle  a  sort  of  lullaby  when  they  lay  their  eggs;  the 
farmer  tiptoes  over  the  gravel  path  when  he  waters 
the  pony  in  the  early  hours;  the  gardener  wears  felt 
slippers  instead  of  hobnailed  shoes;  and  the  whole 
outfit  is  as  quiet  as  could  be  desired." 

So  much  for  resolution! 

In  1899,  Dr.  White,  who  had  been  appointed  by 
President  McKinley  a  member  of  the  Board  of  Vis- 
itors of  the  Annapolis  Naval  Academy,  succeeded  in 
persuading  various  reluctant  departments  to  permit 
the  West  Point  and  the  Annapolis  football  teams  to 
play  on  Franklin  Field.  It  took  a  deal  of  persuasion, 
and  involved  many  promises  which  were  hard  to 
keep.  He  pledged  his  honour  that  there  should  be 
no  gate  money;  but  he  could  not  prevent  Philadel- 
phia politicians  from  selling  the  tickets  he  was  com- 
pelled to  furnish  them.  It  was,  moreover,  a  difficult 
task  to  distribute  seats  "by  favour  only,"  and  the 
clamorous  demand  far  exceeded  the  capacity  of  the 
field.  These  Army  and  Navy  games,  which  were  re- 
peated for  many  autumns,  were  dear  to  Dr.  White's 


88  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

heart.  He  took  pride  in  them  as  a  Philadelphia!!  and 
as  an  American.  They  were  spirited  contests,  to 
which  the  presence  of  distinguished  officials  lent 
interest  and  dignity.  But  from  start  to  finish  they 
involved  endless  labour,  which  he  did  not  grudge, 
and  a  sort  of  intricate  egg  dance  among  contending 
interests,  which  he  was  not  supple  enough  to  per- 
form. Even  when  the  authorities  gave  permission 
that  gate  money  should  be  asked,  and  the  proceeds 
given  to  the  Army  and  Navy  Relief,  the  difficulty  of 
satisfying  the  public  was  lessened,  not  ended.  There 
were  more  people  who  wanted  to  buy,  and  who  held 
they  had  a  right  to  buy,  than  there  were  tickets  to 
be  sold. 

A  friendlier  warfare  had  been  waged  for  years 
between  Dr.  White,  who  was  singularly  reticent 
about  his  "cases,"  and  the  press,  which  sought  to 
know  the  details  of  novel  and  intricate  surgery.  In 
1897  he  published,  in  collaboration  with  Dr.  Edward 
Martin,  a  work  on  "  Genito-Urinary  Surgery  and  Ve- 
nereal Diseases."  It  was  an  exhaustive  and  author- 
itative study,  furnished  with  two  hundred  and  forty- 
three  illustrations,  and  seven  coloured  plates.  The 
success  which  attended  this  volume,  the  opening  in 
the  same  year  of  the  D.  Hayes  Agnew  Pavilion,  and 
the  beginning  of  the  great  drive  for  the  University 
Gymnasium,  brought  the  doctor  so  sharply  before 
the  public  eye  that  an  increased  attention  on  the  part 


THE  YEARS  THAT  COUNT      89 

of  reporters  was  perhaps  inevitable.  The  newspapers 
claimed  that  when  a  man  of  science  withheld  timely 
and  valuable  information  from  their  readers,  he  in- 
flicted a  loss,  and  he  suffered  one.  They  argued  with 
Waller, 

"Small  is  the  worth 
Of  beauty  from  the  light  retired." 

Dr.  White,  impervious  to  this  reasoning,  and  without 
personal  apprehension,  expressed  his  point  of  view 
in  one  uncompromising  sentence:  "Science,"  he  said, 
"ought  not  to  be  paraded  side  by  side  with  a  murder 
up  an  alley."  It  was  an  irreconcilable  difference  of 
opinion. 


CHAPTER  VII 
LAST  YEARS  OF  SURGERY 

MOST  men  who  have  lived  through  a  half-cen- 
tury find  —  to  their  regret  or  to  their  relief  — 
that  they  have  abandoned  the  animating  enthusiasms 
of  youth.  They  retain  a  tender  and  reminiscential 
regard  for  past  pleasures  and  extinguished  zeal;  but 
their  real  and  vigorous  concern  is  reserved  for  the 
cares  and  counsels  of  maturity.  Dr.  White  never  sur- 
rendered his  youthful  convictions,  or  lost  his  youthful 
ardour.  He  clarified  both  with  the  aid  of  reason,  and 
found  them  better  worth  preserving  from  being  more 
amply  understood.  His  interest  in  athletic  sports,  and 
his  belief  in  their  value,  strengthened  with  years  and 
experience.  If,  as  he  lamented,  "the  opponents  of  ath- 
letics die  hard,"  he  stood  ever  ready  to  help  them 
to  their  graves.  He  found  time  in  his  crowded  days 
to  write  sturdy  articles  in  defence  of  the  much 
maligned  football  games,  as  well  as  of  every  other 
game  which  required  strength  and  hardihood.  "Man 
walked  straight  before  he  thought  straight,"  was  his 
scornful  reply  to  upholders  of  the  studious  life. 

Being  himself  tall  and  strong,  and  having  never 
lacked  mental  concentration,  sustained  industry,  or 
professional  skill,  the  doctor  was  naturally  disposed 


LAST  YEARS  OF  SURGERY  91 

to  resent  President  Eliot's  contemptuous  compari- 
son of  "big,  brawny  athletes"  with  "slighter,  quicker- 
witted  men."  He  saw  no  reason  why  quick  wits 
should  not  accompany  broad  shoulders,  and  he  said 
so  in  the  plainest  words  at  his  command.  The  dis- 
paraging comments  of  the  "Nation"  and  the  "Out- 
look "upon  our  "gladiatorial  contests,"  and  Dr.  van 
Dyke's  concern  over  "a  bone-breaking,  life-imperil- 
ing game,"  roused  him  to  more  spirited  vindication. 
Even  the  arguments  of  his  friend,  Thomas  Robins, 
who  pleaded  for  an  open  field  and  for  players  less 
highly  specialized,  failed  to  shake  his  "pigskin  con- 
servatism." He  was,  it  must  be  admitted,  "com- 
plexionally  averse  to  change";  but  he  brought  himself 
in  time  to  accept  reasonable  measures  of  reform,  and 
to  subscribe  heartily  to  President  Roosevelt's  pro- 
posals for  a  simple  and  uniform  eligibility  code.  He 
had  been  closely  connected  with  students  for  twenty- 
five  years,  he  knew  that  their  animal  spirits  needed 
a  broad  outlet,  and  he  had  seen  too  many  evils  re- 
sulting from  "boisterous  college  sprees"  not  to  be 
fully  aware  of  the  corrective  value  of  athletics.  As 
for  the  "hysterical  enthusiasm"  which  was  consid- 
ered so  dangerous  an  accompaniment  of  football,  he 
scored  heavily  when  he  retorted  that  far  more  injury 
had  been  done  to  nations  by  besotting  them  with 
oratory  than  by  provoking  their  admiration  for  ath- 
letics. 


92  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

It  is  amusing  and  instructive  to  see  how  this 
champion  of  physical  prowess  turned  a  searchlight 
upon  history  for  examples  that  would  illustrate  his 
argument.  Dr.  Weir  Mitchell,  speaking  at  a  dinner 
of  the  New  York  alumni  of  the  University  of  Penn- 
sylvania, took  the  opportunity  to  comment  severely 
upon  college  athletics  in  general,  and  upon  football 
in  particular.  He  said  that  when  he  was  in  college, 
their  hero  was,  not  the  captain  of  a  team,  but  their 
"honour  man."  "We  loved  Thackeray  and  Tenny- 
son. Some  of  us  were  enthusiastic  over  Socrates.  Do 
college  men  talk  of  Socrates  in  these  days?" 

Probably  not.  Probably  not  many  undergraduates 
in  Dr.  Mitchell's  youth  indulged  in  Socratic  colloquy. 
The  reader  and  the  scholar  may  be  found  in  every 
seat  of  learning.  They  have  survived  centuries  of 
sport,  centuries  of  battle,  centuries  of  ignorance. 
But  they  have  always  been,  and  will  always  be,  the 
exception,  not  the  rule. 

From  Dr.  WTiite's  point  of  view,  work  and  play, 
study  and  athletics,  walked  amicably  hand  in  hand. 
He  was  convinced  that  the  men  who  are  physically 
fit  are  the  men  of  most  service  to  the  world;  and  that 
food  and  drink  are  not  more  necessary  to  develop- 
ment than  are  sunlight,  oxygen,  and  exercise.  He 
published  two  exhaustive  papers  in  the  "Saturday 
Evening  Post,"  November  and  December,  1900,  set- 
ting forth  the  "natural  association"  between  physi- 


LAST  YEARS  OF  SURGERY  93 

cal,  intellectual,  and  moral  strength,  and  enforcing 
his  arguments  with  a  host  of  amazing  illustrations. 
The  startled  reader  found  himself  confronted  by 
Samson,  "who,  though  he  seems  to  have  lacked  dis- 
cretion, was  a  judge  in  Israel";  Caesar,  who  was 
"admirable  in  all  manly  sports";  Cicero,  who  ad- 
mitted that  he  owed  his  health  to  the  gymnasium; 
Cato,  "who  drilled  his  muscles  into  activity";  Lord 
Byron,  who  swam;  Scott,  who  rode;  Goethe,  who 
skated;  Wordsworth  and  Dickens,  who  walked; 
Gladstone,  who  chopped  wood.  Dr.  White  even  tried 
to  persuade  himself  and  his  public  that  Kant's  daily 
stroll  —  so  methodical  that  the  philosopher's  neigh- 
bours used  to  set  their  clocks  by  his  passing  —  was 
in  the  nature  of  athletics.  A  canvas  broad  enough  to 
admit  Samson  and  Kant  in  juxtaposition  leaves  little 
to  be  desired.  I  offered  to  stretch  it  further  by  mak- 
ing out  an  opposition  list  of  eminent  men  who,  like 
Gibbon  and  Littre,  were  never  known  to  take  any 
exercise  whatever;  but  my  services  were  declined.  I 
was  reminded  that  Gibbon  would  not  stand  by  the 
woman  whom  he  had  asked  to  marry  him,  and  that 
Littre  would  not  face  the  siege  of  Paris, — regrettable, 
but  natural,  consequences  of  sedentary  habits. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  Dr.  White's  love  for  the 
University  of  Pennsylvania  strengthened  his  interest 
in  college  sports,  and  deepened  his  concern  over  their 
fluctuating  fortunes.  There  is  something  admirable 


94  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

and  touching  in  this  sustained  devotion  to  his  Alma 
Mater.  He  was  a  busy  and  a  canny  man;  but  he 
grudged  no  time,  no  labour,  no  money,  when  the 
advancement  of  the  University  was  at  stake.  Her 
medical  school  was  his  pride  and  joy;  her  really  beau- 
tiful museum  —  which  owed  its  perfections  to  Dr. 
William  Pepper  and  Mrs.  Cornelius  Stevenson  — 
gave  him  profound  satisfaction;  her  gymnasium  was 
the  project  nearest  to  his  heart.  Everything  the 
students  did,  from  a  Greek  play  to  a  Mask  and  Wig 
burlesque,  fired  him  with  interest.  When  they  pro- 
duced "Iphigenia  Among  the  Tauri,"  in  the  spring 
of  1903,  he  triumphed  in  this  evidence  of  scholarship; 
and  the  two  hundred  roses  presented  to  the  players 
by  the  Greek  colony  of  Philadelphia  pleased  him  as 
much  as  if  he  had  been  a  debutante  actress  receiving 
this  giant  ovation.  Yet  he  was  habitually  impatient 
of  entertainments  that  did  not  entertain.  He  once 
sat  in  front  of  me  at  a  conscientious  performance,  by 
distinguished  but  deliberate  amateurs,  of  Gilbert's 
"Engaged,"  which,  of  all  plays,  needs  to  be  lightly 
handled.  At  the  close  of  the  second  act  he  arose, 
bade  me  a  cordial  good-night,  observed  amicably, 
"I  think  I'll  come  around  after  breakfast  to-morrow 
morning,  to  see  how  they  are  getting  on,"  and  van- 
ished. But  the  laborious  presentation  of  "Iphigenia" 
failed  to  daunt  him,  for  every  student  actor  was,  in 
some  sort,  his  friend. 


LAST  YEARS  OF  SURGERY  95 

If  college  plays  gave  so  much  satisfaction  to  this 
true  lover  of  youth,  college  games,  which  in  them- 
selves are  well  worth  looking  at,  naturally  absorbed 
his  attention.  He  cared  so  much  for  the  result,  he  was 
so  keen  for  victory,  that  pain  and  pleasure  gripped 
his  heart  whenever  he  watched  the  struggle.  For  six 
bitter  years  the  University  football  team  had  suffered 
defeat  at  Harvard's  hands.  The  Crimson  men  said 
plainly  and  contemptuously  that  the  Red  and  Blue 
men  were  not  worth  playing  against,  and  that  if  they 
were  beaten  for  the  seventh  time,  they  should  be 
dropped  from  the  list  of  contestants.  Therefore,  when 
Penn  defeated  Harvard  11  to  0  at  Cambridge,  in  the 
autumn  of  1904,  the  victory  was  a  source  of  gratifi- 
cation to  all  good  Philadelphians,  and  of  profound 
felicity  to  Dr.  White.  The  students  celebrated  the 
happy  event  for  twenty-four  tumultuous  hours, 
made  nuisances  of  themselves,  as  is  their  wont  on 
such  occasions,  and  were  readily  forgiven  by  their 
tormented,  but  proud  and  grateful  townsmen.  The 
following  year,  Pennsylvania  again  beat  Harvard 
12  to  6  on  Franklin  Field;  and  Dr.  White  wrote  to 
Mrs.  Tom  Robins,  who  had  wired  him  her  felicita- 
tions: "I  was  delirious  on  Saturday,  wildly  happy 
on  Sunday,  ineffably  content  yesterday,  and  am 
blandly  satisfied  to-day.  It  was  what  we  football 
cranks  call  a  great  and  glorious  victory." 

Other  sports  laid  claim  to  his  enthusiasm,  and 


96  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

brought  their  measure  of  delight  and  disappointment. 
In  the  summer  of  1901  the  University  crew  went  to 
England,  to  row  against  the  London  Club,  some  Bel- 
gians, some  Irishmen,  and  the  invincible  Leanders. 
Dr.  White  saw  the  new  eight-oared  shell  christened, 
made  a  rousing  speech  to  the  men  when  they  sailed, 
June  8th,  on  the  Waesland,  and  followed  June  15th, 
on  the  Minneapolis,  to  witness  the  triumph  he  con- 
fidently predicted.  The  Penn  crew  was  exceptionally 
strong,  and  his  assurance  was  justifiable.  But  when 
he  reached  Henley,  and  saw  the  Leander  men  train- 
ing, he  knew,  though  his  hopes  still  ran  high,  that 
the  cup  would  be  hard  to  win.  The  London  Club  was 
easily  outrowed,  the  Belgians  were  nowhere.  "Bar 
accidents,  and  I  don't  see  how  we  can  lose,"  he  wrote 
on  the  morning  of  the  great  race.  But  although  our 
men  made  a  splendid  showing,  Leander  came  in  a 
length  —  a  bare  length  —  ahead,  and  his  heart  was 
too  sore  for  comfort.  "I  had  argued  myself  into  a 
state  of  absolute  confidence,"  he  admitted,  "  so  that 
the  result  was  a  surprise,  and  all  the  harder  to  bear. 
It  was  as  bad  as  any  football  defeat,  —  worse,  I 
think,  because  success  meant  more  to  us.  I  lost  $190; 
but,  of  course,  I'd  have  given  $1900  to  see  that  cup 
in  Houston  Hall  for  a  year." 

The  next  day,  July  6th,  there  is  this  entry  in  his 
diary:  "Still  dull,  but  gradually  beginning  to  realize 
that  we  must  continue  to  live,  and  may  (years  hence) 


LAST  YEARS  OF  SURGERY  97 

enjoy  ourselves.  ...  It  must  be  understood  that  it 

was  a  d d  good  race,  and  that  we  have  nothing 

to  be  ashamed  of."  Indeed,  the  best  of  good  feeling 
prevailed  everywhere,  and  the  contest  was  so  close 
that  there  was  no  bitterness  in  defeat.  Neither,  how- 
ever, was  there  any  solace  in  beating  the  Dublin 
crew  at  Killarney,  because  the  Irishmen  were  so 
quickly  outdistanced  that  the  race  was  no  race  at  all. 
The  beauty  of  the  scenery  brought  small  compensa- 
tion to  Dr.  White's  soul,  and  of  Bantry  he  records  in 
words  which  Horace  Walpole  might  have  envied:  "A 
hideous,  dirty,  unmitigably  Irish  town,  which  makes 
you  spit  and  scratch  just  to  look  at  it."  The  last  act 
of  the  drama  was  played  in  London,  at  the  Hotel 
Cecil,  where  the  American  Society  gave  a  jovial 
supper  to  the  Pennsylvania  men.  Dr.  White  made  a 
gallant  speech,  and,  inasmuch  as  the  company  did 
not  disperse  until  5  A.M.,  the  occasion  must  have  been 
a  pleasurable  one.  Nevertheless,  defeat  is  defeat,  and 
nothing  can  turn  it  into  victory.  "We  certainly  rowed 
a  magnificent  race,"  is  the  diary's  final  comment, 
"and  scared  them  badly;  but,  after  all,  it  comes  back 
to  the  fact  that  the  cup  stays  here." 

To  the  Army  and  Navy  football  game  of  1901  came 
Mr.  Roosevelt,  the  first  American  president  who  had 
ever  graced  the  contest  on  Franklin  Field.  The  de- 
mand for  seats  was  more  clamorous  than  ever,  and, 
as  fourteen  thousand  of  the  thirty  thousand  tickets 


98  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

went  to  West  Point  and  Annapolis,  it  was  clearly 
impossible  to  satisfy  all  aspirants.  The  tickets  issued 
to  politicians  (to  insure  adequate  police  protection 
for  the  President)  were  sold  on  the  sidewalk  for 
twenty-five  dollars  each.  It  was  a  brilliant  and  an 
unspoiled  game.  Admiral  Dewey  was  among  the  dis- 
tinguished guests.  The  sun  for  once  forbore  its  cus- 
tomary trickery,  and  shone  gloriously  in  a  blue  sky. 
Charles  Daly,  West  Point's  quarter-back,  made  a 
sensational  run,  and  won  the  Army's  victory.  The 
crowd  on  the  field  shouted  itself  hoarse,  and,  when 
the  President  left  for  his  train,  the  vaster  crowd  out- 
side took  up  the  cry  —  so  democratic  but  so  loving  — 
"Teddy!  Our  Teddy!"  until  the  skies  rang  with  their 
rapture. 

This  was  not  the  beginning  of  Dr.  WTiite's  ac- 
quaintance with  Mr.  Roosevelt.  The  two  men 
had  met  before.  But  it  was  an  added  link  in  the 
friendship  which  became  the  enthusiasm  and  the 
inspiration  of  the  doctor's  life.  Every  trait  of  Roose- 
velt's splendid  personality  made  its  straight  and 
strong  appeal  to  his  spirit.  The  President  was  not 
only  the  most  distinguished  American  of  his  day;  he 
was  not  only  the  wise  and  intrepid  ruler  of  the  na- 
tion; but  he  was  a  man  whose  hand  —  to  use  Mrs. 
Wharton's  fine  phrase  —  was  ever  on  the  hilt  of  ac- 
tion; a  man  who  held  his  country's  honour  and  his 
own  in  high  regard,  who  was  so  compelling  he  could 


LAST  YEARS  OF  SURGERY  99 

afford  to  be  simple,  and  so  determined  he  could 
afford  to  be  gay.  To  Dr.  White,  who  thought  in  plain 
straight  terms,  who  held  fast  to  primitive  things,  and 
to  those  qualities  which  are  the  foundations  of  man- 
hood, Mr.  Roosevelt  presented  an  ideal  which  years 
failed  to  impair,  and  detraction  could  never  weaken. 
The  President  called  him  from  the  beginning  a 
"sworn  friend,"  which  he  truly  was;  and  showed 
a  well-placed  confidence  in  his  discretion  when  he 
summoned  him  a  few  years  later  to  Washington 
for  a  conference  upon  college  athletics,  and  upon  the 
new  football  rules  which  embodied  some  admirable 
measures  of  reform. 

In  the  summer  of  1903,  Sir  Frederick  Treves,  hav- 
ing reached  the  zenith  of  his  fame,  and  having  un- 
doubtedly saved  King  Edward's  life  by  his  courage  in 
operating  ("Any  other  man,'*  said  the  King  to  Syd- 
ney Holland,  "would  have  sewed  me  up,  and  said 
that  there  was  no  abscess,  or  that  it  was  too  deep 
to  reach"),  retired  from  active  practice.  The  royal 
family  declined  to  release  him;  but  he  severed  his 
connection  with  all  humbler  patients,  and  strongly  ad- 
vised Dr.  White  to  follow  his  example.  He  was  not 
exactly  like  the  fox  who  had  lost  his  tail,  because  he 
had  cut  off  his  own  tail;  but  he  was  solicitous  that  his 
friend  should  be  as  tailless  as  himself.  "Treves  has 
retired  definitely  and  permanently,"  wrote  Dr.  White 
to  Tom  Robins,  in  September,  1903.  "He  has  much 


100  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

to  say  in  favour  of  my  doing  likewise.  I  find,  how- 
ever, that  I  grow  more  extravagant  and  exacting 
as  I  grow  older.  That  makes  me  hesitate  about  re- 
tiring." And  again,  when  lamenting  to  the  same 
faithful  correspondent  that  he  has  had  too  much 
surgery  and  too  little  golf,  he  adds  wistfully:  "I  am 
still  looking  forward  to  retirement,  and  never  think 
of  you  without  envying  your  freedom  from  daily  rou- 
tine, and  from  anxiety,  except  such  as  is,  of  course, 
unavoidable.  We  must  all  of  us  be  anxious  some  time 
or  other  about  the  people  we  care  for  most." 

This  note  of  apprehension  is  struck  again  and  again 
in  every  allusion  to  his  profession.  He  was  like  one 
forever  breaking  a  lance  with  Death,  and  he  could 
not  endure  that  his  great  opponent  should  sometimes 
triumph  over  him. 

In  December,  1900,  he  had  operated  for  appen- 
dicitis on  Mr.  John  Clarke  Sims.  The  patient  was 
convalescent  and  considered  out  of  danger,  when  he 
succumbed  to  a  sudden  attack  of  heart  failure,  and 
died  before  his  surgeon  could  reach  his  bedside.  It 
was  a  heavy  blow  to  Dr.  White,  the  harder  to  bear 
because  the  dead  man  had  been  his  friend.  "My  af- 
fection no  less  than  my  pride  was  at  stake,"  he  wrote 
to  me.  "For  weeks  I  have  devoted  all  my  skill  and 
all  my  purpose  to  saving  this  one  life.  For  weeks 
I  have  sacrificed  both  work  and  play.  And  I  have 
accomplished  nothing." 


LAST  YEARS  OF  SURGERY  101 

Yet  when,  the  following  month,  he  came  perilously 
near  to  an  enforced  retirement,  having  infected  the 
middle  finger  of  his  right  hand  hi  the  operating-room, 
he  was  in  no  wise  disposed  to  be  ousted  from  a  career 
which  he  liked  to  talk  of  abandoning.  He  had  for  his 
profession  that  proud  regard  which  is  the  natural 
outcome  of  achievement.  The  opposition  of  the  "li- 
tigious laity"  to  great  life-saving  measures,  such  as 
vaccination  and  the  use  of  diphtheric  antitoxin,  fired 
him  with  just  wrath.  The  stupid  jokes  of  comic 
papers  about  doctors  and  surgeons  irritated  him  as 
keenly  as  if  they  had  been  barbed  shafts  of  wit.  I 
once  ventured  to  quote  in  his  hearing  those  merry 
lines  from  the  "Beggar's  Opera," 

"Men  may  escape  from  rope  and  gun, 
Some  have  outlived  the  doctor's  pill"; 

but  they  awoke  no  answering  smile.  There  were 
things  he  was  not  prepared  to  jest  over,  and  the 
healing  art  was  one  of  them. 

It  was  natural  that  the  retirement  of  Sir  Frederick 
Treves  should  have  influenced  his  friend,  because  the 
two  men  had  acquired  the  habit  of  spending  part 
of  their  summer  holidays  together.  In  July,  1900, 
Dr.  White  rented  an  English  country-house,  Ingham 
New  Hall,  in  Lessingham,  two  miles  from  the  Treves' 
house  in  Hasboro,  and  slipped  for  once  into  the  un- 
broken calm  of  rural  life.  When  he  was  not  bathing, 
or  trying  to  get  his  bicycle  repaired,  he  was  driving 


102  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

a  fat  pony,  "  Clementina,"  to  Stalham  for  butter  and 
soap,  or  superintending  the  arrival  of  ice  from  Yar- 
mouth. The  sole  excitement  of  the  summer  was  pro- 
vided by  a  mole,  an  indefatigable,  unconquerable 
mole,  which  bade  defiance  to  law  and  order.  "I  am 
no  good  as  a  mole  catcher,  and  might  as  well  go 
out  of  the  business,"  writes  the  disconsolate  tenant. 
"Strychnia  enough  to  kill  the  Boer  army  fails  to 
disagree  with  that  beast."  It  was  in  truth  a  free-born 
British  mole,  and  scorned  to  be  routed  by  Ameri- 
cans. They  found  it  there  when  they  took  the  house, 
and  they  left  it  diligently  raising  hillocks  on  the  lawn 
the  day  they  drove  away. 

The  admirable  thing  about  the  comradeship  of  Dr. 
and  Mrs.  White  and  Sir  Frederick  and  Lady  Treves 
was  the  large  liberty  they  allowed  one  another.  Their 
tastes  were  alike,  but  their  habits  of  life  dissimilar. 
"What  I  want  to  do,  I  want  to  do,"  writes  Dr.  White. 
"Frederick  has  the  same  not  uncommon  peculiar- 
ity, and  we  don't  always  want  the  same  thing.'  The 
Englishman,  for  example,  liked  to  loaf,  and  to  be 
comfortable.  The  American  liked  to  forge  ahead, 
and  to  be  entertained.  When  the  Englishman  got  to 
a  place  which  he  fancied,  it  seemed  to  him  a  good 
reason  for  staying  there.  When  the  American  got  to 
a  place  which  he  fancied,  it  seemed  to  him  a  good 
reason  for  moving  on.  The  Englishman  had  a  strong 
regard  for  his  luncheon,  and  an  almost  religious 


LAST  YEARS  OF  SURGERY  103 

respect  for  his  dinner.  The  American  was  content  to 
leave  his  meals  to  chance  when  tempted  by  an  inter- 
esting excursion.  The  Englishman  (and  the  English- 
man's wife)  preferred  to  drive  over  the  passes  in  the 
Engadine.  The  American  (and  the  American's  wife) 
preferred  to  walk,  and  took  a  genuine  delight  in 
surmounting  difficulties,  and  conquering  fatigue. 

"We  said  good-bye  to  the  Treves,"  is  an  entry  in 
the  Swiss  diary  of  the  following  year.  "They,  of 
course,  were  eating,  and  they  regarded  our  pedes- 
trian tour"  (over  the  Schyn  Pass  and  on  to  Campfer) 
"as  one  of  extreme  danger  and  privation.  They  shud- 
der at  the  thought  of  being  out  of  reach  of  food  for  an 
hour  or  two.  They  will  go  nowhere  unless  some  English 
doctor  —  who  is  generally  an  ignoramus  —  assures 
them  that  the  water  is  all  right,  that  there  have  been 
no  'throat  cases'  in  the  neighbourhood  for  years,  and 
that  sterilized  milk  can  be  obtained  for  Enid.  They 
think  I'm  peculiar,  and  I  think  they're  comic.  All  of 
us  think  the  others  do  not  know  how  to  travel.  We 
get  on  very  well  together,  all  the  same." 

Nothing  incensed  Dr.  White  so  deeply  as  being 
warned  against  walking  too  much,  unless,  indeed,  it 
was  being  warned  against  letting  Mrs.  White  walk 
too  much.  To  some  mild  remonstrance  on  the  part 
of  her  family,  he  answered  tartly  and  triumphantly: 
"Letty  has  for  years  taken  ten  times  the  exercise 
that  most  of  her  women  friends  take,  and  I  should 


104  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

like  to  have  some  sort  of  comparative  test  of  their 
health  and  hers.  I'll  back  Letty."  That  Dr.  Osier, 
whom  he  warmly  admired,  should  not  more  explicitly 
commend  "the  men  who  have  sense  enough  to  take 
exercise/*  vexed  his  soul;  and  he  reproached  this 
high  authority  —  a  bit  unfairly  —  for  backing  "all 
the  lazy,  over-fed,  gouty  imbeciles  in  the  commu- 
nity." Finally,  when  his  friend,  Mr.  Effingham  B. 
Morris,  begged  him  to  call  a  halt  on  Alpine  climbs 
(a  dangerous  sport  for  his  years),  he  retaliated  with 
all  the  counter-accusations  he  could  heap  together  in 
one  scorching  missive.  As  it  chanced,  Mr.  Morris's 
letter  reached  him  at  Morgan  Hall,  where  he  was 
leading  a  gentle  and  blameless  life  with  the  gentle 
and  blameless  Abbeys,  so  that  he  was  able  to  assume 
an  air  of  injured  innocence,  as  if  he  had  been  frisking 
like  a  lamb  all  summer  long  on  the  soft  English  turf. 
After  expatiating  on  the  joys  of  croquet,  and  his  de- 
votion to  that  tranquil  sport,  he  conjured  his  friend 
to  abandon  the  strenuous  for  the  simple  life,  and 
rebuild  the  foundations  of  health: 

"I've  no  doubt  the  Drexel  estate  is  both  honour- 
able and  profitable;  but  if  you  don't  take  more  hol- 
idays, and  —  since  you  won't  climb  mountains  —  at 
least  play  croquet,  you  '11  have  a  d d  large  hand- 
some funeral,  with  a  lot  of  millionaires  for  honorary 
pall-bearers,  and  a  few  really  sorrowing  Christian 
friends  like  me  in  the  hired  carriages. 


LAST  YEARS  OF  SURGERY  105 

"Your  cheek  in  giving  me  good  advice  about 
health  and  safety  is  monumental.  If  you'd  come 
over  here  and  play  with  me  in  the  summer,  you 
would  not,  I  suppose,  accumulate  so  many  diamonds 
for  wearing  purposes,  but  you  could  continue  to  use 
Waterbury  watches  and  nickel  scarf-pins  for  many 
happy  years." 

It  has  a  convincing  ring,  but  when  we  read  the 
records  of  the  Swiss  tramps,  they  sound  more  in- 
trepid than  engaging.  Mrs.  White  walked  like  a 
Trojan.  Fatigue,  vertigo,  blistered  feet,  —  she 
scorned  them  all;  covered  her  requisite  number  of 
miles,  climbed  up  and  slid  down  the  mountain-sides, 
found  the  right  paths  which  Dr.  White  was  an  adept 
at  losing,  and  came  in  smiling  when  the  day  was 
done,  too  proud  and  pleased  to  admit  exhaustion. 
"Letty  has  two  blisters;  but  with  plaster,  grease,  a 
couple  of  pairs  of  stockings,  etc.,  she  pulled  through 
with  comparative  comfort,"  is  a  typical  entry  in  the 
diary.  And,  two  days  later,  after  climbing  the  Piz 
Nair,  which  Baedeker  fraudulently  calls  "easy  and  at- 
tractive": "Letty  has  two  blisters  (not  new  ones,  the 
old  ones  resuscitated) ;  otherwise  we  are  both  well." 

In  the  summer  of  1903  these  dauntless  pedestrians 
ventured  upon  a  supreme  test  of  endurance.  On  the 
1st  of  August  they  walked  from  Pontresina  to  La 
Rosa,  a  good  ten  miles.  This  was  merely  to  get  up 
steam.  On  the  2d  of  August  they  walked  over  the 


106  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

Val  Viola  to  the  Nuovi  Bagni  at  Bormio,  thirty 
miles,  including  an  ascent  of  two  thousand  feet  in 
the  morning,  and  a  descent  of  four  thousand  feet  in 
the  afternoon.  "It  was  really  a  test  of  strength  for 
Letty,"  writes  Dr.  White  triumphantly.  "We  have 
had  harder  walks,  but  none  so  hard,  hot,  rough  and 
stony.  She  wound  up  in  good  shape,  and  is  none  the 
worse  for  it."  The  next  morning,  August  3d,  they 
started  at  7.45,  and  walked  over  the  Stelvio  Pass, 
climbing  five  thousand  feet,  and  descending  four 
thousand  feet  to  Trafoi.  Here  Mrs.  White  enjoyed 
the  unwonted  privilege  of  resting  two  whole  days, 
while  Dr.  White  and  a  couple  of  friends,  Mr.  Fame 
and  Mr.  Orthwein,  made  a  successful  ascent  of  the 
Ortler. 

This  expedition  was  like  all  Alpine  climbs,  —  a 
peerless  combination  of  discomfort  and  danger.  The 
three  men  and  their  guides  spent  the  night  in  the 
"Payerhiitte"  with  a  dozen  adventurous  souls, 
sleeping  —  or  not  sleeping  —  in  all  their  clothes  for 
the  sake  of  warmth,  arose  at  3.30  "as  fresh  as  daisies," 
went  out  at  4.25  into  the  frozen  dark,  cut  their  way 
over  the  upper  glacier,  and  at  6.40  reached  the  sum- 
mit, from  which  "it  looked  as  if  there  were  nothing 
but  mountains  in  the  world."  The  ascent  qualified 
Dr.  WTiite  for  membership  in  the  Swiss  Alpine  Club; 
and  the  only  circumstances  which  humbled  his  legit- 
imate pride  were  Baedeker's  belittling  statement  that 


LAST  YEARS  OF  SURGERY  107 

the  Ortler  "is  not  difficult,  but  requires  a  tolerably 
steady  head,"  and  the  fact  that  a  young  American 
girl,  "very  light  and  strong,"  climbed  easily  and  fear- 
lessly by  his  side. 

The  next  day,  August  6th,  the  Whites  set  val- 
iantly forth,  and  walked  for  eight  hours  and  a  half 
(their  average  was  eight  hours)  over  the  Umbrail 
Pass  to  Santa  Maria;  after  which  they  were  "tired 
enough  to  enjoy  the  quiet  of  the  night,"  but  fresh 
enough  to  start  at  7.30  the  next  morning  for  the 
Scarl  Pass  and  Vulpera.  "A  most  successful  and  en- 
joyable week,"  is  Dr.  White's  summing  up.  "We 
men  have  climbed  twenty-seven  thousand  feet,  Letty 
nineteen  thousand.  I  have  lost  fourteen  pounds  since 
I  left  Philadelphia.  Letty  has  lost  sixteen  pounds. 
She  stood  the  trip  wonderfully.  Orthwein  and  Paine 
are  sure  to  give  her  a  great  reputation  as  a  walker 
when  they  get  back  to  the  Kulm.  Very  few  women 
could  have  done  it." 

It  is  little  wonder  that  after  an  August  spent  in 
such  fashion,  the  Whites  should  have  been  well  dis- 
posed to  dally  a  while  in  England  with  the  Treves 
(Sir  Frederick  promised  to  have  all  the  barking, 
crowing,  cackling  livestock  within  a  mile  of  Barton 
Court  assassinated  before  his  friend's  arrival),  or  that 
croquet  on  the  smooth  lawn  of  Morgan  Hall  should 
have  seemed  a  pleasant  pastime.  The  Abbeys  had 
been  Dr.  White's  guests  in  the  winter  of  1902. 


108  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

Abbey  had  received  the  degree  of  Doctor  of  Laws 
from  the  University  of  Pennsylvania,  and  had  ac- 
cepted a  commission  to  decorate  the  State  Capitol 
at  Harrisburg,  —  work  which  he  began  with  enthu- 
siasm, and  was  destined  never  to  finish.  The  vast 
Coronation  picture  was  still  incomplete,  and  the  bur- 
den of  it  grew  heavier  year  by  year.  The  artist  was 
toiling  over  this  canvas  for  several  successive  sum- 
mers, and  he  told  Dr.  White  many  amusing  stories 
concerning  the  trials  and  tribulations  inseparable 
from  the  painting  of  royalty. 

The  Queen,  he  said,  could  never  be  persuaded  to 
keep  her  appointments;  and  the  King,  who  was  a 
miracle  of  punctuality,  changed  his  mind  frequently 
and  tormentingly  in  regard  to  the  details  of  his  own 
portrait.  At  first  he  was  painted  with  the  yellow 
coronation  robe  falling  to  his  feet.  Then  he  asked  to 
have  one  leg  exposed  so  as  to  exhibit  the  Order  of  the 
Garter.  This  was  done.  Then  he  sent  word  that  both 
legs  had  better  be  uncovered.  This  involved  changing 
lights  and  tones,  and  did  not,  from  the  artist's  point 
of  view,  improve  the  picture;  but  it  was  also  done. 
Then  he  proposed  that  Abbey  should  "suggest" 
Treves  and  Laking  at  the  back  of  the  royal  box. 
They  were,  with  some  difficulty,  suggested.  Then  he 
desired  the  same  privilege  for  several  duchesses  who 
accompanied  the  Queen;  whereupon  the  artist,  who 
was  but  too  well  aware  that  everybody  in  that  box 


LAST  YEARS  OF  SURGERY  109 

wanted  his  or  her  presence  made  plain,  asked  grimly 
whom  he  should  leave  out  to  give  place  to  the  la- 
dies. There  being  no  one  to  leave  out,  the  King,  with 
perfect  good-humour,  abandoned  the  duchesses  to 
obscurity. 

Abbey  also  told  Dr.  White  that,  when  he  was 
painting  the  Prince  of  Wales,  the  young  man  asked 
him  how  much  he  thought  Sargent  made  in  a  year. 
Abbey  said  truthfully  and  discreetly  that  he  did  not 
know.  "Do  you  suppose,"  persisted  the  Prince,  "that 
it's  £10,000?"  "More  likely  £20,000,"  was  the  reply. 
"My  God!"  said  England's  heir,  "I  wish  I  had 
£20,000  a  year." 

Another  large  canvas  on  which  Abbey  was  engaged 
in  the  summer  of  1902  was  a  decoration  for  the  Royal 
Exchange,  and  represented  a  reunion,  after  a  pro- 
tracted feud,  of  the  Companies  of  Skinners  and  Mer- 
chant Tailors,  in  the  presence  of  the  Lord  Mayor  of 
London.  Time,  Richard  III.  The  incident  is  not  pre- 
cisely a  high  light  in  history,  and  many  there  are  who 
have  never  heard  of  it;  but  it  afforded  the  artist  a 
good  chance  for  the  grouping  and  costuming  in  which 
he  delighted,  and  in  which  he  excelled.  Having  per- 
petual need  of  models,  he  pressed  his  guest  into  serv- 
ice as  a  master  skinner.  "I  wear  a  light  wig  with 
hair  reaching  to  my  shoulders,"  wrote  Dr.  White  in 
the  diary;  "a  tall  black  cloth  hat  with  narrow  rolled- 
up  brim,  a  long  robe  and  a  gilt  chain.  I  look  as  ugly 


110  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

as  H !  Perhaps  it  would  be  enough  to  say  uglier 

than  usual." 

Personal  vanity  was  not  a  disturbing  element  in 
his  constitution.  The  morning  he  left  Morgan  Hall, 
he  paid  a  farewell  visit  to  the  studio,  and  declared 
himself  well  pleased  with  his  portrait.  "Some  day," 
he  wrote,  "probably  about  2102,  a  discerning  art 
critic  will  say : '  There  is  in  the  right  hand  corner  of 
the  picture  the  head  of  a  gray-moustached  citizen 
wearing  the  tall  black  hat  of  the  period,  which  is 
rightly  considered  as  the  central  point  of  interest 
in  this  remarkable  painting.  The  face,  judged  by  the 
ordinary  standards  of  human  beauty,  cannot  be  said 
to  be  perfect.  The  mouth  is  somewhat  full,  and  the 
fact  that  it  is  partly  open  does  not  add  to  its  at- 
tractiveness. The  eyes  are  over  prominent,  and  have 
a  tendency  to  what  was  known  in  those  days  as 
blinking.  The  jowls  are  too  accentuated,  and  the 
nose  not  enough  so,  being  indeed  slightly  retrousse, 
whereas  if  it  had  been  longer,  and  inclined  down- 
ward, it  might  have  partly  hidden  the  conspicuous, 
upper  central  incisors.  These,  however,  are  mere 
details.  What  makes  this  face  the  gem  of  the  pic- 
ture, and  of  all  the  pictures  of  this  master,  is  the 
expression  of  almost  superhuman  intelligence,  of 
saintliness  of  spirit,  of  purity  of  soul,  of  pensive 
benevolence,  of  meekness  and  abnegation  when  self- 
interest  is  involved,  but  firmness  and  decision  when 


LAST  YEARS  OF  SURGERY  111 

the  rights  of  friends  are  jeopardized,  which  character- 
izes every  feature.  If  Abbey  had  painted  nothing  else 
but  this  one  face,  it  would  in  itself  justify  his  im- 
perishable reputation,  and  entitle  him  to  rank  above 
Frans  Hals  and  Velasquez.' ' 

When  we  consider  that,  in  addition  to  conferring 
immortality  upon  his  host,  Dr.  White  operated  on 
the  Abbeys'  beloved  black  cat,  Tinker,  removing  a 
malignant  growth  from  the  animal's  poor  little  head, 
and  prolonging  one  of  its  fleeting  lives,  we  can  un- 
derstand his  value  as  a  guest,  and  the  warmth  of 
welcome  which  awaited  him. 

Perhaps  the  obduracy  of  golf  inclined  him  gently 
to  the  Abbeys'  favourite  sport,  croquet.  He  wrote  me 
once  (when  his  patients  were  getting  well,  and  mat- 
ters at  the  University  were  all  going  his  way)  that  if 
his  game  of  golf  would  but  improve,  he'd  ask  nothing 
else  of  fate.  But  though  it  did  improve,  he  never  was 
satisfied  with  its  amendment.  After  a  week's  practice 
on  the  links  of  Maloja,  in  the  summer  of  1901,  his 
only  triumph  was  beating  a  Baltimore  invalid  who 
had  been  suffering  from  nervous  prostration:  "I  am 
going  to  challenge  the  blind  asylum  when  I  get 
home,"  is  his  bitter  comment.  "I  should  be  afraid 
of  the  deaf  and  dumb." 

Yet,  in  their  humble  way,  both  Dr.  and  Mrs.  White 
distinguished  themselves  on  the  Maloja  links.  Mrs. 
White  hit  a  ponderous  German  on  the  head,  and  he 


112  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

said  so  often  and  so  accusingly  that  she  had  "nearly 
killed"  him,  that  Dr.  White,  who  had  seconded  his 
wife's  profuse  apologies,  was  finally  impelled  to  offer 
to  finish  the  job.  Two  days  later,  the  doctor  "took 
another  German  in  the  small  of  the  back  with  a 
hundred  and  twenty-five  yard  brassie,"  awakening 
violent  profanity ;  and  the  following  morning  he  bowled 
over,  "with  a  hard-driven,  low-pulled  ball,"  a  little 
Italian  caddy.  For  one  horrid  moment  he  feared  he  had 
seriously  hurt  the  boy;  but  an  examination  showed 
nothing  more  alarming  than  a  bruised  hand,  which 
was  speedily  righted  with  a  cold-water  bandage,  a 
friendly  word,  and  the  gift  of  a  two-franc  piece. 

Another  distinct  advantage  of  croquet  was  the 
impossibility  of  losing  one's  way  between  the  hoops. 
Dr.  White  always  vowed  he  could  be  lost  in  Ritten- 
house  Square;  but  Rittenhouse  Square  is  a  vast  area 
by  comparison  with  a  tennis  court  or  a  croquet 
ground.  He  was  the  most  eminent  path-loser  of  his 
day,  and  could  always  be  trusted  to  choose  a  long 
and  hard  route  when  there  was  a  short  and  easy  one. 
"The  Lord  has  not  been  very  good  to  me  in  the 
matter  of  talents,"  he  wrote  candidly.  "I  cannot 
sing,  or  make  music,  or  paint,  or  speak  foreign 
tongues  easily.  But  He  has  given  me  a  wonderful 
insight  into  the  wrong  ways  of  getting  —  or  not 
getting  —  anywhere.  I  can  beat  the  world  at  losing 
myself.  That's  a  proud  thought  at  any  rate." 


LAST  YEARS  OF  SURGERY  113 

In  the  spring  of  1903,  John  Sargent  spent  a  month 
with  Dr.  White;  and  a  great  deal  of  gaiety  was 
necessarily  crowded  into  two  very  busy  lives.  The 
artist  had  been  hard  at  work  all  winter,  and  had 
painted  among  other  pictures  the  masterly  portrait 
of  President  Roosevelt,  remarkable,  not  only  for  its 
force  and  purpose,  but  also,  as  Owen  Wister  pathet- 
ically remarked,  for  having  the  first  frock  coat  he 
had  ever  seen  "rendered  gracious  and  harmonious." 
I  was  in  Rome  that  year,  and  Dr.  White  found  time 
—  I  don't  see  how  —  to  write  me  an  unwontedly 
long  letter,  full  of  the  joys  and  sorrows  of  a  Phila- 
delphia May. 

"  I  have  lived  in  what  seems  to  have  been  a  whirl  — 
though  a  pleasant  one  —  for  a  month.  Sargent  came 
here  four  weeks  ago  to-day,  and  goes  to  New  York 
this  afternoon,  to  sail  on  Saturday  for  Gibraltar.  I 
like  him  more  than  ever,  and  wish  he  could  be  here 
for  another  month;  but,  of  course,  there  have  been 
dinners,  and  late  hours,  and  less  exercise  than  usual, 
so  that  I  shall  have  some  lost  rest  to  make  up  be- 
tween now  and  my  sailing  time,  —  June  19th.  His 
work  here  has  been  splendid.  Mitchell's  portrait  is 
superb;  but  he,  Sargent,  thinks  (and  Thomas  Eakins, 
John  Lambert,  and  other  artists  agree  with  him) 
that  the  best  thing  he  did  in  Philadelphia  is  an  oil 
sketch  of  Mrs.  White,  begun  and  completed  last 
Sunday,  —  two  sittings  of  two  hours  each,  —  and  so 


114  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

full  of  life  and  animation  and  spirit  that  it  is  truly 
wonderful.  It  does  n't  flatter  her,  or  make  her  seem 
younger  than  she  is;  it  is  not  a  photographic  like- 
ness; but  it  has  something  that  I  am  not  skilled 
enough  to  describe,  and  that  represents  Sargent  at 
his  best.  I  am  delighted  to  have  it.  He  insisted  on 
doing  it,  and  we  had  not  self-denial  to  refuse,  though 
we  tried  to  do  so. 

"  We  have  had  tropical  weather  here  for  some  days, 
92°  in  the  shade,  —  and  wretched  criminals  expect- 
ing me  to  operate  on  them.  My  only  comfort  is  in  a 
single  shell  on  the  Schuylkill,  clad  —  I,  not  the  shell 
—  in  undershirt  and  drawers.  I  begrudge  the  hours 
I  spend  at  work.  Rittenhouse  Square  is  noisy  with 
the  vociferous  play  of  millions  of  the  useless  progeny 
of  my  neighbours,  the  back  street  in  the  early  morn- 
ing is  pandemonium,  —  and  it  is  one  month  from 
to-morrow  that  I  sail." 

Again  the  note  of  impatience  and  weariness,  —  the 
hours  "begrudged"  to  work.  Treves  was  by  this 
time  a  free  man,  and  meditating  a  journey  around 
the  world.  One  daughter,  Hetty,  had  died.  The 
other,  Enid,  had  married  Colonel  Delme'-Radcliffe, 
who  was  then  officially  surveying,  and  incidentally 
lion-hunting,  in  northern  Uganda.  Dr.  White  prom- 
ised his  friends  that  he  would  meet  them  in  San 
Francisco,  when  the  globe-circling  tour  landed  them 
on  our  shores,  and  the  promise  was  nobly  kept.  It  is 


LAST  YEARS  OF  SURGERY  115 

a  far  cry  from  Rittenhouse  Square  to  the  Golden 
Gate;  but  when  Sir  Frederick,  Lady  Treves,  and  Mrs. 
Delme-Radcliffe  landed  in  May,  1904,  Dr.  and  Mrs. 
White  were  on  the  docks  to  receive  them.  The  Eng- 
lish ladies  frankly  confessed  that  they  had  had  a 
surfeit  of  travel.  To  stay  in  one  place  now  seemed  to 
them  the  best  of  earthly  joys.  Therefore,  when  they 
found  themselves  moderately  comfortable  in  Wawona, 
in  Wawona  they  resolved  to  remain,  while  Sir  Fred- 
erick and  the  Whites  went  to  the  Yosemite.  "I 
didn't  argue,"  writes  Dr.  White  virtuously.  "After 
all,  as  I  said  to  Lady  Treves,  they  were  under  no 
obligation,  moral  or  otherwise,  to  'do*  the  Yosem- 
ite; and  if  they  were  happier  in  Wawona,  no  one 
could  object  to  their  staying  there." 

This  was  a  handsome  concession.  In  ruder  and  less 
tolerant  days,  no  one  had  ever  heard  such  words 
from  the  doctor's  lips.  He  was  beginning  to  realize  — 
hi  the  case  of  other  people,  not  yet  in  his  own  — 
that  there  are  limits  to  endurance. 

As  Treves  was  to  receive  a  degree  from  the  Uni- 
versity of  Pennsylvania  on  the  13th  of  June,  as 
they  were  to  visit  the  Grand  Canyon  on  their  east- 
ward flight,  as  there  were  social  engagements  looming 
on  the  Philadelphia  horizon,  and  as  the  whole  party 
were  to  sail  for  England  on  June  24th,  Lady  Treves 
and  her  daughter  may  have  had  some  excuse  for 
relinquishing  the  rare  loveliness  of  the  Yosemite. 


116  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

And  perhaps  they  would  not  have  found  it  lovely.  I 
once  made  some  rapturous  comment  upon  its  beauty 
to  Alice  Meynell,  and  that  distinguished  lady  replied 
that  she  did  not  consider  the  Yosemite  beautiful.  It 
was,  she  said,  on  too  vast  a  scale  for  beauty. 
*  The  distinctive  feature  of  this  summer  was  Dr. 
White's  ascent  of  the  Piz  Palti,  one  of  the  highest 
peaks  of  the  upper  Engadine,  a  climb  of  which  even 
Baedeker  the  scornful  speaks  with  becoming  rever- 
ence, as  "trying,  not  advisable  except  when  the 
snow  is  firm,  and  requiring  a  steady  head."  The  Piz 
Palii  is  12,835  feet,  only  a  little  lower  and  a  little  less 
dangerous  than  the  Piz  Bernina.  Mr.  Paine  was 
again  his  companion.  They  had  the  two  best  guides  in 
the  Engadine,  and  the  expedition  was  of  sufficient 
importance  to  be  gravely  and  admiringly  chronicled  in 
the  "  Alpine  Post."  For  a  man  in  his  fifty-fourth  year, 
who  had  made  but  one  other  ascent,  it  was  an  amaz- 
ing feat.  Dr.  White  confessed  to  extreme  fatigue; 
but,  beyond  a  few  cuts  and  bruises,  seemed  none  the 
worse  for  it.  There  is  a  characteristic  entry  in  his 
diary,  the  day  before  he  started:  "I've  borrowed 
Orthwein's  ice-axe,  Paine's  second  jersey,  Bott's 
gaiters  —  to  keep  the  snow  out  of  my  shoes  —  and 
Letty's  dark  glasses.  If  I  fall  down  a  precipice,  or  a 
crevasse,  there  will  be  four  people  interested  in  find- 
ing the  remains." 

In    December,    1904,    the   long   hoped-for,    long 


LAST  YEARS  OF  SURGERY  117 

planned-for,  long  fought-for  gymnasium  was  at  last 
opened  to  the  students  of  the  University.  For  years 
Dr.  White  had  worked  with  grim  determination  over 
this  cherished  scheme.  For  years  he  had  counted  no 
labour  too  heavy,  no  enthusiasm  too  keen,  no  sacri- 
fice too  great,  where  its  advancement  was  concerned. 
In  April,  1902,  he  was  able  to  write  to  Thomas 
Robins  that  $200,000  had  been  raised,  and  that  the 
bond  issue  of  $262,000  had  been  fully  subscribed. 
The  building  cost  when  completed  nearly  $600,000. 
Its  beauty,  its  scope,  its  admirable  equipment,  were 
due  to  him.  His  unfaltering  resolution  and  con- 
tagious zeal  animated  his  townsmen,  and  spurred 
them  to  repeated  efforts.  The  College  alumni  re- 
sponded nobly  to  his  call.  The  day  that  he  formally 
presented  this  gymnasium  to  the  University  was 
perhaps  the  proudest  and  happiest  of  his  life.  In  a 
few  simple  words  he  told  of  his  early  hopes,  of  his 
harsh  disappointments,  of  his  seven  years  of  toil.  He 
also  announced  a  bequest  of  $50,000  from  the  estate 
of  Mr.  William  Weightman  to  the  endowment  fund, 
—  a  bequest  which  he  had  personally  beguiled  from 
the  testator.  Provost  Harrison  accepted  the  new 
building  in  the  name  of  the  trustees,  and  Dr.  R.  Tait 
McKenzie,  sculptor,  and  Director  of  Physical  Edu- 
cation, made  an  admirable  address.  The  relations 
between  this  keen  and  brilliant  young  Canadian  and 
Dr.  White  were  of  the  friendliest  character.  Six 


118  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

months  after  the  opening  of  the  gymnasium,  Dr. 
McKenzie  wrote  to  Dr.  White:  "What  your  advice 
and  friendship  have  meant  to  me  in  this  trying  year 
of  strangeness  and  pioneer  work  I  need  never  tell 
you.  If  you  are  a  telepathist,  you  must  have  felt  it. 
I  am  not  likely  ever  to  forget,  and  I  hope  I  may  yet 
have  a  chance  to  repay  it  in  small  part,  leaving  al- 
ways a  debt  that  I  am  glad  to  owe." 

In  January,  1905,  Henry  James  came  to  Phila- 
delphia, to  give  his  lecture  on  Balzac  before  the 
Contemporary  Club.  It  was  his  maiden  effort,  the 
first  time  he  had  heard  his  own  voice  raised  in  public, 
and  he  was  correspondingly  nervous  and  depressed. 
Dr.  WHiite  put  him  up  at  the  Rittenhouse  Club,  and 
gave  him  a  supper  after  the  meeting,  snatching 
wisely  at  that  happy  hour  when  —  the  burden  lifted 
—  a  speaker  becomes  once  more  a  free  and  happy 
man.  Mr.  James  before  the  lecture,  and  Mr.  James 
after  the  lecture,  was  a  study  in  gloom  and  gaiety. 
He  and  his  host  had  never  met  until  that  January 
night;  and  just  as  the  great  law  of  sympathy  or- 
dained that  Dr.  White  and  Roosevelt  should  be 
friends,  so  the  great  law  of  contrast  ordained  that 
Dr.  White  and  James  should  also  be  friends,  under- 
standing each  other  from  the  first  hour  they  met, 
and  trusting  each  other  to  the  last.  On  his  subse- 
quent visits  to  Philadelphia,  the  great  novelist  waj 
always  the  surgeon's  guest.  Dr.  White  never  ex- 


LAST  YEARS  OF  SURGERY  119 

ploited  him,  never  flattered  him,  never  teased  him 
with  questions;  but  just  gave  him  honest  liking, 
freedom,  and  leisure;  while  Mrs.  White  saw  to  it  that 
he  had  the  warm  fires  and  soft  blankets  which  he 
dearly  loved,  being  the  chilliest  man  hi  Christendom. 
It  is  little  wonder  that  when  he  left  these  pleasant 
quarters  to  wander  through  the  frozen  South,  Mr. 
James's  letters  were  full  of  regret  for  lost  comforts 
and  companionship.  He  wrote  from  Biltmore  that  he 
had  been  increasingly  cold  ever  since  he  crossed  the 
Mason  and  Dixon  line;  that  Richmond,  "wrapped  in 
ice  and  snow"  (it  was  a  very  inclement  winter),  had 
desolated  him;  and  that  Biltmore  House  was  "mag- 
nificent, imposing,  and  utterly  unaddressed  to  any 
possible  arrangement  of  life,  or  state  of  society,  or 
recruiting  of  company,  in  this  huge,  sordid,  niggery 
wilderness,  which  was  all  I  saw  after  leaving  the 
melancholy  Richmond."  He  pictured  himself  hob- 
bling goutily  through  vast  and  chilly  corridors,  look- 
ing out  of  "colossal  icy  windows,"  and  sighing  for 
what  seemed  by  comparison  "the  cosy  little  house 
on  Rittenhouse  Square,"  with  the  "rich  security  of 
its  stained  and  pictured  library,"  and  with  the  sunny 
suite  of  rooms  which  had  been  his  own,  and  for 
which  he  had  acquired  a  cat-like  attachment.  He 
would,  he  said,  joyfully  exchange  the  "whole  per- 
pendicular English  staff "  of  Biltmore  for  "a  single 
snatch  of  Mrs.  Morton  and  little  Joseph." 


120  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

This  seems  a  fitting  time  (inasmuch  as  she  has 
been  formally  introduced  by  Henry  James)  to  say  a 
few  words  about  Mrs.  Morton,  who  was  a  familiar 
and  characteristic  feature  of  Dr.  White's  establish- 
ment. She  was  his  housekeeper  when  he  first  ac- 
quired a  bachelor  home  on  Sixteenth  Street,  and  she 
remained  his  housekeeper  until  he  died.  She  had 
been  a  sick  nurse,  and  came  to  him  because  (a  widow 
with  an  only  son)  she  wanted  to  keep  this  child  by 
her  side.  The  doctor  took  a  strong  interest  in  the  boy, 
who  went  to  the  public  schools,  studied  medicine  at 
the  University,  married,  and  acquired  a  country 
practice  and  a  family.  But  not  even  the  lure  of 
grandchildren  could  win  Mrs.  Morton  from  her  post. 
Her  affection  for  Dr.  White,  an  affection  duly  mingled 
with  honour  and  with  pride,  was  the  great  emotion 
of  her  life.  To  talk  about  him  was  her  keen  delight. 
She  knew  his  crotchets,  and  conceded  them.  She  also 
knew  his  worth;  —  his  loyalty,  his  immaculate  in- 
tegrity, his  boundless  kindness  to  poor  patients 
whose  paymaster  is  God.  She  could  tell  tales  of  his 
devotion  to  these  humble  clients,  about  whom  he 
maintained  a  rigorous  silence.  "What  praise  is  more 
valuable  than  the  praise  of  an  intelligent  servant?" 
asks  Jane  Austen,  who  knew  that  it  is  to  our  own 
households  we  oftenest  expose  our  inconsistencies. 
Mrs.  Morton's  spare,  upright  figure,  her  white  hair 
and  smiling  face,  remained  a  pleasant  memory  in  the 


LAST  YEARS  OF  SURGERY  121 

minds  of  many  guests.  The  references  to  her  in  their 
letters  mark  the  dignity  and  importance  of  her  po- 
sition. Her  fidelity  deepened  with  every  year  of  serv- 
ice; and  when  the  end  came,  and  Dr.  White's  be- 
quest made  her  handsomely  independent,  she  simply 
transferred  her  whole  allegiance  to  Mrs.  White,  who 
had  formerly  shared  it,  and  lived  on  in  the  old  house 
which  had  held  all  the  substance  and  sweetness  of 
her  life. 

The  power  of  attaching  to  himself  people  who 
worked  for  him,  or  with  whom  he  came  into  daily 
contact,  was  Dr.  White's  lifelong  gift.  He  estab- 
lished relationships  which  stood  the  test  of  time.  He 
did  not  forget,  and  he  was  not  forgotten.  When  in 
the  summer  of  1903  he  found  himself  in  the  neighbour- 
hood of  Lulworth,  he  motored  over  to  see  the  old 
couple  whose  cottage  he  had  rented  eleven  years 
before,  and  who  had  looked  carefully  after  his  com- 
fort. He  found  his  former  landlord  failing  fast,  and 
made  this  entry  in  his  diary:  "Mem:  —  To  send  Mrs. 
Haytor  a  sovereign  every  Christmas,  and  increase  it 
to  two  after  Hay  tor's  death." 

Mention  has  been  made  of  "  Professor"  Billy  Mc- 
Lean, in  whose  gymnasium  Dr.  White  encountered 
the  friendly  bruiser  who  had  erstwhile  thirsted  for  his 
blood.  McLean  was  a  boxer  from  whom  the  doctor 
had  acquired  the  art  of  self-defence,  and  who  was 
prodigiously  proud  of  his  pupil.  He  loved  to  match 


122  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

him  against  professionals,  to  "try  him  out";  and  on 
one  occasion  brought  three  of  these  gentry,  Forsyth, 
Arnold,  and  McNallery,  to  the  house  on  Ritten- 
house  Square,  and  presented  them  to  its  master  as 
opponents  worthy  of  his  skill.  "The  doctor," he  said, 
"would  box  with  any  one."  On  this  occasion  the 
combat  was  so  sustained  and  so  glorious  that  Ar- 
nold, who  had  driven  a  peaceful  milk  wagon  before 
he  took  to  the  fancy,  asked  with  some  asperity  if  he  had 
been  lured  into  a  gentleman's  house  to  be  murdered. 
When  McLean  grew  old,  Dr.  White  obtained  for 
him  a  post  as  one  of  the  guardians  of  Rittenhouse 
Square;  and  there  the  former  pugilist  looked  after 
the  playing  children,  rescued  their  boats  from  foun- 
dering in  the  pool,  and  told  hilarious  stories  of  his 
youth.  "Once,"  he  confessed  to  me,  "I  got  into 
some  little  trouble.  Well,  no  matter  what  it  was 
about.  I  got  out  of  it  anyhow.  The  next  time  I  saw 
Dr.  White,  he  said:  *  Billy,  when  you  were  in  trouble 
the  other  day,  why  didn't  you  send  for  me?'  I 
thanked  him,  and  told  him  I  had  n't  any  need  to. 
And  the  very  next  day,  what  did  he  do  but  knock 
down  a  fellow  who  had  insulted  him,  and  get  himself 
arrested  for  doing  it.  I  waited  until  he  came  to  my 
rooms,  and  I  said  to  him:  'Doctor,  I  heard  you  were 
in  trouble  the  other  day.  Why  did  n't  you  send  for 
me?'  He  just  looked  at  me,  and  'Billy,'  said  he,  'you 
gotoH !'" 


LAST  YEARS  OF  SURGERY  123 

On  the  22d  of  February,  1905,  the  University  of 
Pennsylvania  conferred  the  degree  of  Doctor  of 
Laws  on  President  Roosevelt  and  the  German  Em- 
peror. Baron  von  Sternburg  accepted  the  honour 
in  the  name  of  the  Kaiser,  who  cabled  this  urbane 
message: 

Dr.  Charles  C.  Harrison,  Provost, 

University  of  Pennsylvania,  Philadelphia. 
I  am  truly  glad  that  the  University  has  tendered 
me,  at  the  same  time  with  President  Roosevelt,  the 
academic  honour  that  once  clothed  George  Washing- 
ton. I  beg  you  to  accept  with  my  thanks  my  best 
wishes  for  the  continued  growth  and  prosperity  of 
the  University. 

WILHELM,  Imperator  Rex,  Berlin 

It  is  significant  that  President  Roosevelt,  who  was 
the  orator  of  the  day,  should  have  made  a  plain  and 
practical  appeal  for  protection  against  imperialism; 
pleading  then,  as  he  had  pleaded  before,  and  as  he 
pleaded  until  the  end,  for  that  wise  and  warlike 
preparation  which  alone  can  insure  us  safety. 

Dr.  White's  admiration  and  affection  for  the  Pres- 
ident had  deepened  with  the  deepening  of  knowl- 
edge and  experience.  A  year  before  this  celebration, 
Thomas  Robins  accused  his  friend  of  trying  to  win 
him  over  to  warmer  partisanship  by  sending  him 


124  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

all  the  derogatory  editorials  in  the  "Nation."  The 
scheme  worked.  A  steadfast  course  of  reviling  is  sure 
to  awaken  contrary  emotions  in  generous  hearts. 
Robins  admitted  that,  after  reading  one  particu- 
larly virulent  attack,  "Roosevelt  became  tolerable  im- 
mediately," and  he  stood  ready  to  vote  for  him  like 
a  man.  "The  Nation  pulled  me  around." 

On  the  great  question  of  national  security,  Dr. 
White  held  strong  and  sane  views.  He  was  the  last 
man  in  Christendom  to  pose  as  a  prophet;  but  neither 
was  he  ever  content  to  live  in  a  fool's  paradise.  Ger- 
many had  made  plain  her  malevolence  in  the  Spanish 
War.  He  no  more  dreamed  than  did  his  neighbours 
that  she  was  planning  fresh  conquests  in  Europe, 
and  that  within  ten  years  she  would  turn  the  world 
into  shambles;  but  he  was  well  aware  that  she  was 
making  trouble  for  us  in  Mexico.  As  far  back  as 
1899  he  records  in  his  diary  a  devout  wish  that  the 
United  States  would  strengthen  her  navy,  and  ally 
herself  defensively  with  Great  Britain;  so  that  when 
Germany  plotted  against  us  in  Samoa,  Mexico,  or 
the  Philippines,  we  could  put  a  stopper  on  her  mis- 
chievous designs. 

In  the  spring  of  1905  the  first  symptoms  of  heart 
trouble  intruded  themselves  menacingly  upon  Dr. 
White's  reluctant  consciousness.  He  had  always  been 
superbly  healthy  and  superbly  active.  He  could  not 
contemplate  life  under  any  other  conditions.  He  was 


LAST  YEARS  OF  SURGERY  125 

then  hard  at  work  on  the  section  of  Piersol's  "Hu- 
man Anatomy"  which  dealt  with  practical  surgery, 
toiling  over  it  with  that  concentration  of  purpose 
which  accomplished  such  marvellous  results.  "  Yester- 
day," he  wrote  on  March  20th  to  Tom  Robins,  "was 
a  rainy  day,  and  I  sat  at  my  desk  from  10.30  A.M.  to 
7.30  P.M.  Letty  is  at  the  Hot  Springs.  I  will  not  go 
down,  as  I  want  to  get  the  book  finished  this  spring." 

By  May  he  was  so  much  worse  that  rest  was  im- 
perative, and  in  early  June  he  made  a  careful  note  of 
his  condition,  and  of  Dr.  Stengel's  diagnosis.  "For 
the  first  time  in  my  life  I  have  reason  to  think  I  am 
not  entirely  sound,  having  suffered  for  ten  weeks 
from  an  irritable  heart,  my  symptoms  consisting  of 
arrhythmia,  palpitation,  and  a  variable,  but  at 
times  decided,  mitral  systolic  murmur.  This  is  sup- 
posed [to  be  due  to  heart  strain  during  my  recent 
mountain  climbing  experiences.  I  am  told  that  there 
is  no  valvular  disease,  but  that  I  probably  have  some 
form  of  myocardial  degeneration.  The  month  at  the 
seashore  did  me  so  much  good  that  I  hoped  the 
trouble  was  disappearing;  but  four  days  in  Phila- 
delphia, with  the  hurry  and  worry  of  getting  ready 
to  sail,  have  brought  back  most  of  the  symptoms.  So 
much  for  this  troublesome  business." 

To  Thomas  Robins,  then  in  California,  he  wrote 
more  fully  and  freely  about  his  health  than  he  did  to 
any  other  correspondent.  The  initials  "S.  I.,"  which 


126  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

stood  for  saintly  invalid  (himself),  became  increas- 
ingly frequent  in  his  letters.  He  admitted  to  this 
sympathetic  friend  his  discouragement  and  his  pro- 
found disgust.  Dr.  Stengel  promised  him  that  he 
might  live  many  years  if  he  would  give  up  every- 
thing which  made  life  worth  having.  For  that  form 
of  amusement  known  as  "moderate  exercise"  he 
had  no  taste  whatever.  To  abandon  climbing,  tramp- 
ing, cycling,  swimming,  coffee  and  tobacco,  consti- 
tuted a  heavy  draft  on  renunciation.  The  only  indul- 
gence he  relinquished  without  concern  was  alcohol. 
Robins  wrote  back  much  good  advice,  given  with  the 
solicitude  of  affection.  He  made  up  lists  of  reasonable 
pleasures  which  the  saintly  invalid  might  still  enjoy, 
and  he  pointed  out,  with  the  perspicuity  of  an  ob- 
servant friend,  a  few  roads  to  reform:  "If  you  will 
only  lop  off  mountain  climbing,  walk  after  your  golf 
ball  instead  of  rushing  at  it  like  a  mad  bull,  and  sit 
quietly  in  your  box  at  the  ball  games  instead  of  wav- 
ing your  arms  like  windmills  on  the  side-lines,  you 
will  surely  live  to  the  eighties." 

"Human  Anatomy"  was  ready  for  the  printers 
by  the  end  of  May,  and,  on  the  16th  of  June,  Dr.  and 
Mrs.  White  sailed  for  England.  In  London,  Dr.  Osier 
made  a  careful  examination  of  the  patient,  confirmed 
Dr.  Stengel's  diagnosis,  permitted  a  few  weeks  in 
Switzerland,  and  prescribed  a  cure  at  Bad  Nauheim. 

It  is  worthy  of  comment  that  during  this  summer 


LAST  YEARS  OF  SURGERY  127 

of  ill-health  and  anxiety,  when  week  after  week  Dr. 
White's  symptoms  grew  more  pronounced,  his  days 
less  profitable,  his  nights  devoid  of  ease,  the  diary 
becomes  for  the  first  time  in  sixteen  years  riotously 
humorous.  It  is  as  though  the  sick  man,  determined 
not  to  repine,  took  refuge  in  dwelling  hilariously 
upon  every  absurd  incident,  and  in  laughing  his  wife 
out  of  her  deep  concern.  He  fills  pages  with  teasing 
descriptions  of  her  interrogatory  conversation,  her 
ruthless  interruptions  to  his  poetic  flights,  the  pe- 
riodic losses  of  jewelry  which  enliven  dull  days,  and 
her  fluttering  fear  of  mice.  "It  is  strange,"  he  muses, 
"how  easily  these  animals  —  with  presumably  no 
education  in  the  matter  —  can  tell  a  man  from  a 
woman.  It  must  be  something  about  our  legs  or  our 
underclothes  which  enlightens  them." 

One  astute  and  valorous  mouse  "of  the  dangerous 
variety  known  as  the  Souribus  Ferox,  or  woman- 
eating  mouse  of  the  Engadine,"  attacked  Mrs.  White 
in  their  sitting-room  in  the  Hotel  Kulm,  St.  Moritz. 
"She  was  alone  at  the  time,  but  fortunately  I  was 
in  the  next  room,  or  Heaven  knows  what  might  not 
have  happened.  She  gave  a  shriek  that  startled  the 
hotel,  caused  crowds  to  gather  in  the  road  below  our 
windows,  and  put  back  my  heart  cure  one  calendar 
month.  I  rushed  in,  but  the  mouse  was  gone.  No  one 
has  seen  it  except  Letty;  but  she  now  has  our  suite 
so  full  of  mouse  traps  that  there's  no  room  for  fur- 


128  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

niture.  This  is  a  sample  of  our  daily  conversation: 
**  8  A.M.  Letty  appears,  to  the  extent  of  putting  her 
head  hi  my  room  and  yawning:  'Have  any  mice  been 
caught  in  the  traps?'  'No,  dear/  'Why  not?'  'I  don't 
know,  love.'  'Have  you  looked  at  them?'  'I  have, 
and  I  caught  my  toe  in  one  of  them  when  I  got  up 
to  draw  the  curtains.'  'Well,  did  you  set  it  again?' 
'No,  sweetheart.'  'Why  not?'  'Because  I  love  the 
cute  little  mice,  and  I  like  to  see  them  around,  and 
enjoy  their  innocent  gambols,  and  — '  Door  slams." 
As  for  the  long  threatened  paper  on  "Morning 
Noises  of  the  World,"  some  valuable  notes  were 
secured  for  it  in  Switzerland.  The  travellers  spent 
one  night  at  Siis,  having  crossed  the  Fliiella  Pass  en 
route  to  St.  Moritz,  had  an  excellent  dinner,  and 
slept  the  sleep  of  the  weary  until  4  A.M.,  when  this  is 
what  took  place  under  their  windows,  —  the  diary 
recording  each  event  in  order: 

1.  (4  o'clock):  Boy  with  a  shrill  tin  whistle  calling 
cows. 

2.  Cows  with  large  bells  on  their  necks. 

3.  Shepherds  talking  to  each  other. 

4.  Shepherds  talking  to  a  female. 

5.  Shepherds  and  female  all  talking  at  once. 

6.  Sheep  with  small  bells  on  then-  necks,  and  lambs 
bleating. 

7.  Rooster  crowing  directly  under  window,  and  try- 
ing to  outdo  another  rooster  around  the  corner. 


LAST  YEARS  OF  SURGERY  129 

8.  Two  hens  join  rooster,  and  cackle. 

9.  Rooster  and  hens  put  to  flight  by  a  tumblerful 

of  water  from  J.  W.  W. 

10.  Horses  (with  bells)  led  through  the  streets. 

11.  Early  diligence  passes. 

12.  Rooster  and  hens  return,  and  are  again  put  to 
flight. 

13.  Goatherd  with  a  long  horn,  blowing  loudly. 

14.  Goats  with  medium-sized  bells  on  their  necks. 

15.  Hens  again. 

16.  Reapers  with  scythes,  talking  loudly  on  their 

way  to  work. 

17.  Rooster  again.  By  this  time  it  was  6.20,  and  I 
got  up.  So  did  Letty. 

If  good  advice  could  keep  any  of  us  on  the  straight 
and  narrow  path  of  prudence,  Dr.  White  need  never 
have  lost  his  footing.  Friends  and  acquaintances 
wrote  to  him  all  summer,  enjoining  a  contemplative 
life,  and  pointing  out  the  beauties  of  inaction. 
Among  them  was  Henry  James,  who,  after  urging 
his  friend  to  come  to  Rye,  implored  him  with  whim- 
sical intentness  to  surrender  himself  for  once  to  the 
limitations  imposed  by  illness.  "When  you  tell  me 
you  are  not  well,  I  see  it  only  means  that  the  rank- 
ness  of  your  pride  and  the  violence  of  your  past  are 
not  sufficiently  laid  low.  .  .  .  Nauheim  is,  I  believe, 
beautiful  and  benignant,  and  never  fails  with  those 


130  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

of  its  children  who  really  consent  to  nestle  on  its 
bosom.  Nestle  close!  Nestle,  and  don't  wrestle,  ac- 
cording to  your  vice  and  wont.  That's  all  you  re- 
quire, —  to  permanently  give  up  wrestling.  I,  for  one, 
shall  feel  myself  better  for  your  having  done  so.  The 
sense  that  you  have  quit  it  will  act  quite  as  my  own 
private  little  Nauheim." 

From  a  friend  of  six  months'  standing,  this  letter 
shows  as  much  insight  as  affection.  Its  plea,  and  the 
oft  repeated  pleas  of  other  correspondents,  were  fully 
granted;  for  it  is  in  the  nature  of  all  "cures"  to  turn 
their  patients  into  pulp,  to  deaden  every  vital  im- 
pulse, to  conquer  the  souls  as  well  as  the  bodies  of 
their  victims.  When  Dr.  WTiite  had  been  ten  days  at 
Nauheim,  he  was  as  inert  as  a  garden  snail.  "The 
laziness  of  the  place  is  really  getting  into  my  bones," 
he  writes  in  the  diary.  "To-day  I've  walked  to  the 
bath-house  (four  minutes)  and  back;  and  to  the  Kur- 
haus  (ten  minutes)  and  back.  That's  all,  and  yet  I 
feel  as  if  I  'd  had  quite  enough  exercise,  —  perhaps 
a  shade  too  much." 

Thermal  baths,  "resembling  Schuylkill  water  after 
a  heavy  rain,"  filled  up -a  modicum  of  time.  Massage, 
"resting,"  and  "fooling  about"  filled  up  the  rest.  To 
play  with  some  engaging  little  children  at  the  Kur- 
haus  became  a  recognized  pastime;  to  "listen  to  the 
music"  figured  as  recreation;  an  illumination  in  the 
hotel  garden  was  a  real  event.  Dr.  Heineman,  the 


LAST  YEARS  OF  SURGERY  131 

Nauheim  physician  recommended  by  Dr.  Osier, 
urged  his  patient  to  be  "placid"  (he  might  as  well 
have  asked  him  to  be  timorous  or  affable),  and  to 
"take  things  quietly,"  which  he  tried  hard  to  do.  He 
notes  with  increasing  frequency  in  the  diary  his  suc- 
cessful essays  at  passivity.  "Begin  alkathrepta  this 
A.M.  instead  of  coffee.  Ha!  Ha!"  "To-day  I  stayed 
eleven  minutes  instead  of  six  in  the  bath,  waiting  for 
the  man  to  come  and  take  me  out  and  dry  me.  God 
knows  it's  a  wonder  I'm  not  dead." 

There  seems  to  have  been  a  forlorn  pleasure  in 
laughing  at  his  own  plight,  at  the 

"masterful  negation  and  collapse 
Of  all  that  made  him  man." 

On  the  8th  of  August  he  records  feelingly:  "Out  of 
the  last  twenty-four  hours  I  have  spent  fifteen  'rest- 
ing' in  a  recumbent  position.  By  the  time  my  five 
weeks  are  up,  I  shall  have  had  more  continuous, 
consecutive  rest  than  I've  had  in  nearly  fifty-five 
years.  And  the  trouble  is  they  don't  send  you  away 
for  your  after-cure  to  exercise,  and  get  up  your 
muscle  again;  but  insist  that  you  must  then  take 
more  rest,  to  recuperate  from  the  baths.  Heaven 
knows  what  I'll  be  like  in  October.  I  never  exercise 
on  a  steamer  anyhow.  I'll  probably  arrive  home  in 
a  bonnet  and  veil,  with  a  little  knit  shawl  over  my 
shoulders,  black  fingerless  mittens  on  my  hands, 
open-work  stockings,  high-heeled  red  morocco  slip- 


132  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

pers,  a  lorgnette  instead  of  spectacles,  and  a  caba 
to  hold  a  little  bottle  of  smelling-salts,  one  of  cologne, 
a  piece  of  orris  root  to  bite  on  occasionally,  and  a 
nice  little  black  Testament.  If  Ethel  and  Florence 
see  any  one  like  that  running  at  them  with  shrill  cries 
of  joy,  they'll  know  it's  their  Uncle  Bill." 

Dr.  Heineman's  diagnosis  of  the  case  was  an  "irri- 
table heart  from  suppressed  gout."  This  concurred 
with  Dr.  White's  own  convictions,  and  with  Dr. 
Osier's  theory  that  the  trouble  was  "pure  neurosis." 
There  were  days  when  the  patient  felt  himself 
bounding,  or  at  least  sauntering,  back  to  health, 
and  days  when  he  was  profoundly  discouraged. 
Clear  Sprudel  baths  replaced  the  more  homelike 
"Schuylkill"  dips;  the  children  went  away  with  their 
arms  full  of  Dr.  White's  farewell  gifts;  the  weather 
grew  cold.  The  hour  of  departure  brought  with  it  a 
sense  of  well-merited  improvement,  which  was  not 
destined  to  last.  Ostend,  or  at  least  the  Palace  Hotel, 
a  mile  or  so  out  of  that  "Franco-Belgian-German 
ghetto,"  had  been  chosen  as  an  after-cure.  "Sargent 
is  off  to  Jerusalem,"  wrote  Dr.  White  to  Thomas 
Robins.  "I  asked  him  why  Ostend  wouldn't  have 
done  as  well.  There  are  more  Jews  there.  Of  course 
his  visit  is  in  the  interest  of  his  work  in  the  Boston 
Library.  I  hate  to  see  such  paintings  put  in  such  a 
God-forsaken  place  as  that  dreary  corridor  assigned 
to  them." 


LAST  YEARS  OF  SURGERY  133 

A  verdict  with  which  many  readers  will  agree. 

A  brief  visit  to  Henry  James  at  Rye  was  immensely 
cheering  to  the  invalid.  He  wrote  that  he  had  sud- 
denly lost  all  his  homesickness,  and  should  like  to 
stay  in  England  for  a  month.  The  old  house,  the  old 
town,  and  his  kind  host  gave  him  a  serene  sense  of 
well-being,  which  not  even  the  rainy  weather  could 
dispel.  He  listened  delightedly  to  the  chronicles  of 
the  country-side,  and  to  personal  reminiscences, 
jotting  down  occasionally  such  an  item  as  this:  "I 
want  to  record,  for  the  purpose  of  telling  Harrison 
Morris  some  day,  that  the  best  selling  story  James 
ever  wrote  —  *  Daisy  Miller*  —  was  first  offered  to 
'Lippincott's  Magazine/  and  was  promptly  rejected 
by  the  editor,  John  Foster  Kirk.  *  Daisy  Miller*  was 
subsequently  pirated  in  America"  (the  shame  of  it!), 
"and  seventy-five  thousand  copies  were  sold." 

Morgan  Hall  was  as  soothing  and  as  sympathetic 
as  Lamb  House,  although  the  patient  suffered  so 
severely  at  this  time  that  Dr.  Osier  made  a  little 
journey  to  see  him.  Fresh  advice  was  given,  new 
remedies  were  tried.  "I  am  beginning  to  have  my 
own  view  about  the  situation,"  is  Dr.  White's  grim 
comment.  "But  I've  had  so  many  views  —  of  my 
own  and  of  others  —  and  they  're  so  devoid  of  practical 
results,  that  I'm  not  going  to  waste  time  in  putting 
down  any  more.  The  camphor  is  keeping  the  moths 
out  of  my  heart  anyhow.  That's  a  great  comfort." 


134  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

The  summer  he  counted  a  failure  (there  was  no 
other  possible  verdict),  and  the  winter  to  which  he 
returned  was  full  of  cares  and  contrarieties.  Here  and 
there  were  bright  spots  in  the  gloom.  The  election  of 
Treves  as  Lord  Rector  of  Aberdeen  University  gave 
him  sincere  pleasure;  and  he  accepted  (provisionally) 
his  friend's  invitation  to  represent  the  University  of 
Pennsylvania,  and  receive  a  degree  at  Aberdeen's 
Four  Hundredth  Anniversary.  He  abandoned  defi- 
nitely and  forever  his  surgical  practice,  taking  this 
long-meditated  step  for  reasons  which  were  more 
convincing  to  himself  than  to  his  friends  and  patients. 
He  retained,  however,  the  John  Rhea  Barton  Chair 
of  Surgery  at  the  University,  and  gave  his  lectures 
with  unstinted  zeal. 

There  was  much  football  clamour  in  the  air,  but 
some  of  it  passed  him  by.  Columbia  relinquished  the 
game  which  had  never  been  her  long  suit.  The  col- 
leges in  general  were  keen  for  reform.  The  Army 
and  Navy  game  was  played  at  Princeton  instead 
of  on  Franklin  Field,  which  was  unable  to  furnish 
the  requisite  space  to  West  Point  and  Annapolis. 
President  Roosevelt  was  again  present.  The  distin- 
guished guests  were  royally  entertained;  but  thou- 
sands of  visitors,  unable  to  obtain  other  food  than  a 
chance  sandwich  (which  they  refused  to  consider  in 
the  light  of  luncheon),  and  heart-broken  over  the  dif- 
ficulties of  transit  (it  is  a  stout  heart  that  Prince- 


LAST  YEARS  OF  SURGERY  135 

ton  Junction  cannot  break),  sighed  for  the  flesh-pots 
of  Philadelphia.  No  wonder  there  should  be  a  note 
of  genuine  satisfaction  in  a  letter  written  by  Dr. 
White  to  Thomas  Robins,  January  30,  1906,  and 
containing  the  welcome  news  that  the  repentant  au- 
thorities had  signified  their  desire  to  return  to  their 
old  quarters: 

"The  Army -Navy  game  is  to  be  played  next  De- 
cember on  Franklin  Field.  This  was  arranged  yester- 
day. We  were  generous,  and  promised  we  would 
make  some  extra  provision  for  them"  (West  Point 
and  Annapolis)  "on  a  temporary  stand,  although  we 
would  not  recede  an  inch  from  our  original  position, 
and  give  them  more  than  two-thirds  of  the  present 
seats.  I  believe,  on  the  whole,  that  we  have  done 
right,  and  that  they  have  had  a  lesson  which  will 
enable  them  to  appreciate  what  they  are  getting 
when  they  come  here.  I  am  glad  they  went  to  Prince- 
ton, for  until  they  tried  elsewhere,  they  did  not  know 
how  comfortable  they  were  with  us." 

In  this  month  (January,  1906),  Dr.  White,  smitten 
with  the  desire  for  a  country  home  which  comes  to 
every  man  at  least  once  in  a  lifetime,  bought  the 
very  beautiful  property  in  Delaware  County  known 
as  the  "Old  Farm."  It  was  an  estate  of  a  hundred 
and  thirty-seven  acres,  with  a  good  colonial  house 
somewhat  out  of  repair.  "You  will  see  that  I  have 
provided  elaborately  for  the  use  of  my  spare  time 


136  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

during  the  few  remaining  years  of  my  life,"  he  wrote 
to  Robins;  who,  in  return,  besought  him  eloquently 
to  do  what  no  owner  of  a  country  home  has  ever 
been  known  to  do,  —  live  in  it:  "When  you  are  in  the 
country  give  up  the  pursuits  of  town,  all  the  pomps 
and  vanities  of  the  wicked  world,  and  the  pride 
thereof.  Burn  your  bridges  and  be  a  countryman, 
and  you  will  be  happy.  But  if  you  become  a  subur- 
banite, cleaving  unto  Rittenhouse  Square,  you  will 
be  miserable,  and  will  promptly  sell  the  place.  All  of 
which  I  firmly  believe." 

;  Dr.  Osier,  who  was  Dr.  White's  guest  this  winter, 
and  still  much  concerned  about  his  health,  was  en- 
thusiastic over  the  curative  powers  of  field  and 
meadow.  "The  farm,  I  dare  say,  will  be  your  salva- 
tion," he  wrote  after  his  return  to  England.  This 
pleasant  conceit  was  echoed  from  every  side.  There 
are  hosts  of  people  ready  to  believe  that  a  town 
mouse,  transported  to  the  country,  becomes  forth- 
with a  country  mouse,  changing  its  nature  with  the 
changing  scene.  The  only  dissentient  voice  in  this 
chorus  of  congratulation  came  from  Dr.  Martin. 
"WThat  is  the  first  thing  I'd  better  do  with  this 
place?"  asked  the  proud  proprietor;  to  which  his 
friend  replied  concisely  and  conclusively,  "Pave  it." 
In  April,  the  California  earthquake,  followed  by 
the  disastrous  fires  in  San  Francisco,  filled  the  coun- 
try with  dismay  and  commiseration.  "Thousands  are 


LAST  YEARS  OF  SURGERY  137 

stripped  as  naked  as  they  were  born,"  wrote  Thomas 
Robins  from  San  Mateo.  "Men  who  had  large  in- 
comes have  now  nothing  for  daily  needs;  yet  they  are 
full  of  hope  for  the  future.  I  did  not  dream  that  the 
highly  specialized  modern  could  face  the  conditions 
of  the  cave  man  with  such  uncomplaining  alacrity." 

Dr.  White's  first  concern  was  for  the  safety  and 
welfare  of  his  friend.  When  this  anxiety  had  been  set 
at  rest,  he  applied  himself  vigorously  to  measures  of 
relief.  He  sent  a  strong  appeal  to  the  alumni  of  the 
University  of  Pennsylvania  in  behalf  of  their  fellow 
students,  who,  scattered  along  the  Pacific  Coast,  had 
been  involved  in  the  universal  ruin.  "Some  of  them 
are  young  men  who  worked  their  way  through  col- 
lege, and  had  succeeded  in  establishing  themselves 
in  the  pursuit  of  their  chosen  avocations.  Physicians, 
lawyers,  chemists  and  engineers  have  lost  their  li- 
braries, instruments,  household  goods  and  clothing, 
and  are  now  in  genuine  and  extreme  distress.  Where 
can  they  turn  in  their  hour  of  need  with  more  cer- 
tainty of  freely  proffered  aid  than  to  their  Alma 
Mater?" 

The  response  to  this  call  was  so  generous  (even  the 
Mask  and  Wig  Club  broke  its  rules,  and  gave  a 
benefit  performance),  the  fund  was  so  well  admin- 
istered, and  the  demands  upon  it  were  so  decently 
moderate  (American  gentlemen  do  not  take  help 
unless  it  be  a  sore  necessity),  that,  after  "central 


138  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

California  had  been  raked  with  a  fine  tooth  comb  for 
Pennsylvania  men  in  need,"  there  was  actually  money 
left  in  the  treasury,  —  money  for  which  no  Univer- 
sity graduate  applied. 

This  relief  fund  was  Dr.  White's  last  public  activ- 
ity for  the  year  1906.  His  health  had  been  indifferent 
all  winter  and  spring.  He  believed  and  said  that  he 
was  holding  his  own;  that,  notwithstanding  many 
bad  days  and  nights,  the  heart  trouble  had  made 
little  or  no  progress.  He  had  given  up  violent  exer- 
cise, and,  with  it,  the  habits  of  a  lifetime;  and  he 
hoped  that  by  spending  tranquil  days  and  nights  on 
the  farm,  and  by  rolling  'round  in  a  motor  like  a  fat 
and  prosperous  citizen,  he  might  compromise  with 
an  unrelenting  foe.  Then  suddenly  there  came  a  bolt 
from  the  blue,  a  harsh  threat  of  impending  disaster, 
a  tremendous  struggle  for  the  life  that  was  so  useful 
and  so  dear. 


CHAPTER  VIH 
A  CRISIS  PAST 

ON  June  5th,  1906, 1  had  an  attack  of  peritonitis, 
during  which  I  discovered  a  hard  nodular  mass 
in  my  left  iliac  fossa.  Taken  with  my  other  symptoms, 
at  my  age  (fifty-five),  this  indicated  with  great  prob- 
ability a  cancerous  growth  involving  the  sigmoid 
flexure,  no  final  and  conclusive  proof  of  the  presence 
of  internal  cancer  being  at  this  date  known  to  the 
profession.  On  June  17th  I  left  Philadelphia  (with 
Letty  and  Dr.  A.  C.  Wood)  for  Rochester,  Minne- 
sota, where  we  arrived  June  19th.  On  June  21st  I 
was  operated  on  by  Dr.  William  J.  Mayo.  Resection 
of  seven  inches  of  the  sigmoid,  with  end-to-end  anas- 
tomosis, was  done.  The  operation  was  severe  and 
prolonged.  Dr.  Mayo  thought  the  mass  was  can- 
cerous until  the  pathologist 's  report  showed  that  it 
was  a  congenital  diverticulum,  containing  an  enter- 
olith  which  had  set  up  ulceration,  and  was  sur- 
rounded by  a  mass  of  inflammatory  exudate,  making 
the  lump  thought  to  be  malignant.  The  ulceration 
had  already  caused  perforation  of  the  bowel,  which 
had  given  me  the  attack  of  peritonitis." 

This  is  Dr.  White's  succinct  account  of  an  expe- 
rience which  embraced  the  utmost  limits  of  appre- 


140  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

hension  and  relief.  He  had  no  doubt  that  the  growth 
was  a  malignant  one.  The  physicians  who  examined 
him  were  equally  sure  of  it.  and  made  little  effort  to 
deceive  a  man  who  absolutely  refused  to  deceive 
himself.  He  put  his  affairs  in  order  with  his  cus- 
tomary precision.  There  were  many  friends  eager  to 
accompany  him  to  Rochester;  but  he  declined  all 
companionship  save  that  of  his  wife  and  of  Dr.  Alfred 
C.  Wood,  who  had  been  for  years  his  assistant  in 
the  University  Hospital,  and  for  whom  he  enter- 
tamed  the  strong  regard  which  comes  with  the  shar- 
ing of  work,  and  care,  and  responsibility.  He  knew 
Dr.  Wood's  skill  as  a  surgeon;  he  knew  his  deep 
unspoken  affection;  and  he  knew  the  quality  of  his 
intercourse,  the  smooth,  silent,  wise  watchfulness, 
which  would  give  all  the  help  that  was  needed,  and 
never  fret  the  nerves  of  a  man  who  believed  he  was 
travelling  to  receive  his  death-warrant.  As  soon  as  an 
hour  was  fixed  for  the  operation,  telegrams  were  sent 
to  Philadelphia,  and  Dr.  Martin,  Dr.  Frazier,  and 
Dr.  Stengel  started  at  once  for  Rochester.  Treves 
had  been  most  anxious  to  be  present,  but  it  was,  of 
course,  impossible  to  await  his  coming. 

There  was  one  intervening  day,  June  20th,  and 
Dr.  White  filled  it  up,  characteristically  enough,  by 
watching  the  two  great  brother  surgeons  operate. 
The  utmost  interest  was  taken  in  his  own  case,  the 
utmost  kindness  and  consideration  were  shown  him. 


A  CRISIS  PAST  141 

When  the  report  revealed  the  non-malignant  char- 
acter of  the  growth,  Dr.  William  Mayo  hastened  to 
the  bedside  of  his  patient,  who  was  perilously  weak, 
and  somewhat  disinclined  to  living.  "Well,  you're 
all  right,"  he  said  gladly. 

"Well,  you're  a  good  liar,"  replied  Dr.  White. 
"I've  been  there  myself,  and  I  know." 

Dr.  Mayo  sat  down,  and  took  the  sick  man's  hand. 
"You  don't  know  every  thing,"  he  said.  "It  is  like 
this.  A  bagful  of  black  beans  and  one  white  one. 
You've  pulled  out  the  white  bean.  Now  get  well." 

Meanwhile,  in  far-off  Philadelphia,  Dr.  White's 
secretary,  Miss  Ivens,  waited  all  that  long  June  day 
hi  his  office  on  Rittenhouse  Square  for  news  which 
she  could  transmit  to  his  anxious  friends.  She  was  as 
earnestly  and  as  loyally  devoted  to  him  as  any 
friend  he  had,  her  concern  was  as  deep,  her  heart  as 
heavy.  At  ten  o'clock  in  the  morning  she  said  to  me, 
"  Come  back  at  four.  We  should  have  word  by  then." 
At  four  I  went.  She  opened  the  door.  Her  eyes  were 
shining,  her  face  transfigured  with  joy.  Silently  she 
handed  me  the  telegram,  and,  half-dazed  by  the 
sudden  lifting  of  fear,  I  read  the  message  which 
brought  better  news  than  any  one  had  ever  dared 
to  hope. 

The  convalescence  was  slow,  and  endangered  by 
serious  complications.  For  a  whole  month  Dr.  White 
was  permitted  to  remain  in  the  hospital,  —  an  un- 


142  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

heard-of  indulgence  when  so  many  patients  were 
waiting  for  admission.  For  ten  days  Dr.  Wood  stayed 
by  his  side.  He  established  the  friendliest  relations 
with  Sister  Mary  Joseph  and  her  assistant  nuns;  and, 
after  his  faithful  fashion,  he  never  forgot  her  kind- 
ness. When  he  reached  Rome  the  following  Novem- 
ber, he  sent  her  a  signed  photograph  of  Pope  Pius 
the  Tenth,  and  obtained  for  her  and  for  her  sister- 
hood the  Papal  blessing;  in  return  for  which  she 
wrote  him  fervent  thanks,  promised  him  fervent  pray- 
ers, and  gave  him  unreservedly  the  "united  love"  of 
the  community. 

To  Dr.  Mayo  he  made  the  only  return  in  his  power. 
His  friendship  for  both  the  brothers,  his  admiration 
and  gratitude,  found  expression  in  a  codicil  in  his 
will,  bequeathing  to  them  the  sum  of  $10,000.  He 
wrote  them  frankly  of  this  bequest,  and  they  an- 
swered just  as  frankly,  saying  they  always  had  bet- 
ter luck  than  they  deserved,  and  that,  while  they 
were  willing  to  wait  many  long  years  for  the  money, 
it  would  be  useful  to  the  hospital  when  it  came. 

On  July  3d,  thirteen  days  after  the  operation, 
came  the  first  faint  scrawl  in  Dr.  White's  hand- 
writing to  Thomas  Robins.  "I  ought  to  have  had 
cancer,"  he  wrote.  "  Mayo  says  it  was  one  hundred 
to  one  chances  against  me,  and  that  he  hardly 
thought  any  alternative  worth  considering.  But  my 
dumb  luck  stuck  to  me."  On  July  12th  he  wrote 


A  CRISIS  PAST  143 

again,  this  time  quite  legibly,  and  in  his  old  banter- 
ing strain.  He  has  escaped  all  the  pitfalls  spread  to 
catch  his  tottering  steps.  He  has  been  promoted  to 
the  dignity  of  bathing  himself,  and  of  brushing  his 
own  teeth.  The  teeth  he  finds  unchanged;  but  his 
arms  and  legs  are  so  shrunken,  they  are  not  worth 
washing.  He  can  hardly  see  them  with  the  naked 
eye.  For  fifteen  months  he  had  been  treated  for  a 
heart  disease  that  did  not  exist.  For  fifteen  months 
the  real  nature  of  his  malady  had  never  been  sus- 
pected. For  fifteen  months  he  had  blindly  accepted 
the  verdict  of  his  doctors.  He  offers  the  excuse  that 
he  was  the  patient,  and  that  it  was  not  his  business 
to  find  out  what  was  the  matter  with  himself;  but  he 
is  candid  enough  to  admit  that  he  was  a  bit  "stupid" 
never  to  have  made  a  guess  at  the  truth. 

On  the  18th  of  July  he  left  Rochester,  and  on  the 
20th  a  little  group  of  happy  friends  and  relatives 
waited  for  the  arrival  of  his  train  in  Philadelphia. 
Thin,  worn,  but  smiling  and  as  perverse  as  ever,  the 
convalescent  jeered  at  the  rolling  chair  which  had 
been  drawn  close  to  the  car,  refused  the  station  lift, 
walked  proudly,  though  not  very  firmly,  down  the 
stairs,  and  into  the  waiting  motor.  He  was  taken  at 
once  to  the  house  of  his  cousin,  Mr.  S.  S.  White, 
at  Narberth,  and  remained  there,  gaining  a  pound  a 
week,  until  he  sailed  for  England  about  the  first  of 
August.  There  existed  between  Dr.  White  and  this 


144  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

cousin  a  warm  and  inextinguishable  friendship  which 
dated  from  early  boyhood,  and  which  had  that  foun- 
dation upon  which  Robert  Louis  Stevenson  says 
most  friendships  are  built,  —  the  memory  of  careless, 
happy  hours,  of  mutual  jests,  of  little  experiences, 
comical  or  exasperating,  which  they  had  shared  for 
years.  Their  marriage  with  two  sisters  deepened  the 
bond  between  them.  Dr.  White's  summer  diaries 
were  really  letters,  sent  home  in  batches,  meant 
chiefly  for  his  cousins  and  brothers;  and  full  of  jokes, 
and  phrases,  and  allusions,  to  which  only  his  chosen 
readers  held  the  key. 

From  absent  friends  came  hosts  of  loving,  anxious 
letters.  John  Sargent  wrote  his  deep  concern  and  his 
profound  relief.  Henry  James  sent  warm-hearted 
messages  to  his  "dear  and  gallant  friend,"  and  longed 
to  "scuffle"  with  Mrs.  White  for  the  privilege  of 
holding  his  hand.  Treves  was  beside  himself  with 
delight  at  the  happy  ending  of  so  many  sorrowful 
hours.  Lord  Lister  wrote  a  sad  little  note,  confessing 
his  own  heavy  infirmities,  while  congratulating  Dr. 
White  on  his  marvellous  restoration  to  health.  Dr. 
Horace  Howard  Furness  complimented  the  conva- 
lescent upon  his  wisdom  in  foregoing  for  a  time  "the 
problematic  joys"  of  another  world.  "Had  I  my 
will,"  he  wrote  affectionately,  "every  step  in  your 
life  should  be  strewed  with  flowers.  But  are  not 
transitory,  fading  flowers  far  better  replaced  by  the 


A  CRISIS  PAST  145 

countless  blessings  invoked  upon  your  head  from 
lips  where  gratitude  will  last  as  long  as  life?  What 
are  the  roses  of  an  hour  compared  with  the  roses  of 
health  that  you  have  made  to  bloom!  Ah,  my  boy, 
you  are  to  be  envied. 

"As  our  St.  Agnes  told  you,  I  intended  to  go  at 
once  and  look  after  you,  although  my  special  pro- 
ficiency does  not,  as  you  are  aware,  meet  your  case. 
But  I  am  timid  about  calling  on  my  friends.  It  is 
such  a  horrid  bore  to  talk  to  a  deaf  man.  When 
Nature  sends  deafness,  it  is  the  good  dame's  way  of 
saying  to  the  victim,  'do  you  go  into  the  corner  and 
hold  your  tongue,  —  conversation  is  not  for  such  as 
you/  I  accept  her  decree,  and  obey.'* 

It  was  natural  that  the  ocean  voyage  this  fateful 
summer  should  have  seemed  to  Dr.  White  the  sweet- 
est he  had  ever  known.  The  lightness  of  heart  which 
comes  with  the  departure  of  pain  and  the  daily  in- 
crease of  strength  was  intensified  by  the  thought  that 
life  was  his  to  hold;  that  the  world,  with  its  dear 
familiar  things,  its  perpetual  menace  and  its  shining 
possibilities,  was  his  to  conquer  and  enjoy.  He  had 
been  ready  to  meet  the  "great  adventure"  with  an 
unshrinking  front;  but  his  desire  to  live  was  vigorous 
and  unabashed.  The  sea,  the  salt  breeze,  and  the 
sparkling  sun  sent  the  blood  dancing  through  his 
veins.  The  shores  of  England  beckoned  invitingly. 
Loving  friends  awaited  his  arrival.  Aberdeen,  where 


146  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

he  was  to  receive  the  degree  of  LL.D.  was  his  main 
objective;  but  there  was  time  to  spare  for  a  run  through 
Wales,  a  visit  to  Morgan  Hall,  London,  and  the 
English  Lakes.  He  had  thought  to  make  things 
easier  by  sending  over  his  motor  and  his  faithful 
chauffeur,  Ell  wood;  and  the  sight  of  them  on  the 
Liverpool  docks  was  pleasantly  reassuring.  Later  on 
he  learned  that  he  had  secured  for  himself  three 
months  of  care  and  vexation;  but  this  knowledge 
was  mercifully  hidden  in  those  first  smooth,  tranquil 
days. 

From  Henry  James  came  a  long  letter,  full  of  ad- 
miration, or  consternation  (it  is  hard  to  tell  which), 
at  the  meteor-like  velocity  with  which  the  conva- 
lescent was  scouring  through  Wales.  "The  whole 
picture  of  your  proceedings  and  adventures,"  he 
wrote,  "affects  me  as  nothing  else  does.  I  sit  here 
driving  my  poor  dull  pen,  and  striking  my  damp 
ineffectual  matches,  while  you  bound  from  continent 
to  continent,  from  ocean  to  mountain,  from  hospital 
to  motor,  from  triumph  to  triumph,  in  a  manner  that 
attests  the  exuberance,  not  to  say  the  arrogance,  of 
your  vitality.  Truly  you  live  a  Life,  and  the  mere 
side-wind  of  it,  in  the  form  of  a  Bettws-y-Coed  (I  do 
love  to  write  that  name)  breeze,  makes  me  sit  up. 
I  am,  in  fact,  sitting  up  till  one  A.M.  to  tell  you  how 
I  rejoice  in  your  grand  recovery,  in  your  brave  activ- 
ity, in  everything  that  is  yours." 


A  CRISIS  PAST  147 

Dr.  White's  appreciation  of  the  Welsh  scenery 
found  expression  in  a  renewed  zeal  for  photography. 
Since  the  far-off  days  on  the  Hassler  he  had  practised 
this  difficult  art  with  singular  lack  of  success.  He 
sent  me  once  some  photographs  of  his  own  taking, 
and  I  could  only  say  it  was  a  severe  blow  to  me  to 
know  that  he  could  do  anything  so  badly.  Still,  as  he 
repeatedly  pointed  out,  there  was  always  a  picture 
of  some  sort  to  show  as  a  result  of  his  endeavours, 
while  Mrs.  White  occasionally  drew  a  blank.  "The 
workings  of  the  female  mind  are  truly  wonderful,"  he 
observes  with  conscious  superiority.  "After  eighteen 
years  of  kodaking,  Letty  is  just  as  likely  as  not  to 
put  the  lens  against  her  stomach,  and  try  and  pho- 
tograph with  the  other  end." 

It  was  inevitable  that  there  should  have  been  some 
disappointments  to  mar  the  glory  of  this  triumphant 
summer.  The  motor,  which  behaved  so  irreproach- 
ably in  the  start,  grew  more  and  more  recalcitrant 
as  the  weeks  went  by,  and  required  a  great  deal  of 
tinkering  at  the  least  convenient  times,  and  in  the 
least  commodious  localities.  The  reports  from  the 
farm  were  exasperating,  —  plumbers,  plasterers,  gar- 
deners, and  workmen  generally,  conspiring,  after 
their  wont,  to  make  a  mess  of  their  respective  jobs. 
"No  bad  news  except  about  the  farm,  which  I  wish 
were  in  Hell,"  is  a  typical  entry  in  the  diary.  It  was 
in  this  first  year  of  ownership  that  Dr.  Martin  chris- 


148  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

tened  the  place,  "Oh,  Hell!"  and  as  "Oh,  Hell!"  it 
is  casually  and  repeatedly  alluded  to.  Mrs.  White 
rebelled  against  this  endearing  epithet,  explaining 
tersely  that  it  was  not  a  name  which  she  could  have 
engraved  upon  her  stationery;  so  Mr.  Robins  re- 
placed it  with  the  pastoral  and  irreproachable  appel- 
lative, "Cherry  Knoll  Farm." 

More  serious  matters  of  concern  to  Dr.  White 
were  Abbey's  ill-health  (he  had  been  an  invalid  for 
five  months),  and  his  own  lack  of  endurance.  Fatigue, 
heat,  worry  of  any  kind,  told  on  him  as  they  had 
never  told  before;  and,  in  the  first  flush  of  convales- 
cence, he  was  apt  to  forget  that  he  had  ever  been  ill. 
There  were  nights  rendered  sleepless  by  over-exertion, 
and  there  were  homesick  days  when  he  comforted 
himself  by  watching  Mrs.  White's  recovered  bloom 
and  unalloyed  content.  "Letty's  old  insomnia  still 
troubles  her  before  10  P.M.  and  after  8  A.M.,"  he 
writes  from  Keswick;  "but  for  the  intervening  ten 
hours  she  is  dead  to  the  world.  She  is  having  a  tre- 
mendous flirtation  with  a  Canadian  gentleman,  a 
little  my  senior,  and  spends  most  of  her  waking 
hours  (when  they  are  not  meal  hours)  talking  to 
him." 

It  would  have  been  the  part  of  wisdom  (even  mod- 
erate wisdom)  to  have  saved  up  strength  for  the 
fatiguing  days  in  Scotland;  but  this  was  not  Dr. 
White's  way.  Treves  had  written  from  the  royal 


A  CRISIS  PAST  149 

yacht,  then  anchored  at  Christiania,  claiming  his 
friends  as  his  guests  while  they  were  in  Aberdeen. 
He  was  not  having  a  really  good  time  on  that  yacht. 
The  daily  excursions  in  company  with  one  king,  two 
queens,  and  a  princess,  were  less  merry  than  the  old 
picnics  at  Scilly.  "I  miss  the  bathing  clothes  hung 
out  to  dry,"  he  wrote.  "There  is  no  golf,  but  a  big 
dinner  of  some  sort  every  night,  which  I  could  do 
without.  The  only  thing  you  would  enjoy  is  the 
service  of  prayer  and  praise  every  Sabbath  morn." 

Two  things  weighed  upon  Dr.  White's  soul  as  he 
motored  to  Aberdeen.  He  would  be  compelled  to 
make  a  speech  (a  short  one,  happily)  in  the  name  of 
all  the  American  universities;  and  he  would  be  com- 
pelled to  wear,  when  he  received  his  degree,  a  par- 
ticularly brilliant  gown  of  scarlet  and  pale  blue.  He 
wondered  if  it  would  be  as  gorgeous  as  the  Cambridge 
gown  in  which  Dr.  Furness  looked  on  Commence- 
ment days  like  "a  jolly  old  bird  of  paradise";  and 
he  found  to  his  dismay  that  it  was  more  determinedly 
picturesque,  being  topped  by  a  rakish  black  velvet 

cap,  hard  to  adjust,  and  "d d  unbecoming"  when 

adjusted.  The  speech,  however,  was  a  great  success, 
owing  largely  to  the  fact  that  the  Reverend  William 
Smith,  first  Provost  of  the  University  of  Pennsyl- 
vania, had  been  an  Aberdeen  man,  born  within  a 
mile  of  the  town,  baptized  in  the  old  Aberdeenshire 
kirk,  and  educated  at  the  University.  The  story  of 


150  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

this  highly  belligerent  and  seditious  Scotchman, 
who,  when  clapped  into  a  Philadelphia  jail,  con- 
tinued to  instruct  his  students  in  these  incommo- 
dious quarters,  and  turned  the  peaceful  prison  into 
Bedlam,  was  hailed  with  delight  by  his  townsmen. 
They  had  forgotten  all  about  him  for  more  than  a 
hundred  years,  and  were  correspondingly  pleased  to 
be  reminded  of  his  tumultuous  and  triumphant 
career. 

The  Aberdeen  celebrations  lasted  three  days, — 
three  whole  days  of  meetings,  and  speeches,  and  for- 
mal openings  of  new  buildings,  and  processions,  and 
luncheons,  and  "banquets."  It  was  a  terrible  pro- 
gramme for  a  convalescent  who  had  been  ordered 
quiet  and  rest;  but,  once  embarked  upon  it,  there 
seemed  no  avenue  of  escape.  The  Lord  Provost  of 
the  University  gave  one  banquet,  the  Lord  Chancel- 
lor, a  second.  At  the  first,  Dr.  White  sat  between  a 
German  professor  and  an  ex-Lord  Provost,  and  had 
as  much  in  common  with  his  neighbours  as  he  might 
have  had  with  a  "cigar-store  Indian."  At  the  second, 
he  was  too  tired  and  ill  for  conversation.  As  the 
friend  and  guest  of  the  Lord  Rector,  he  was  bidden 
to  the  royal  luncheon,  the  only  foreigner  so  honoured; 
and  he  walked  in  his  cap  and  gown  through  the 
streets  of  Aberdeen  to  the  Town  Hall,  in  company 
with  other  gentlemen  equally  distinguished  and 
equally  bedizened,  while  the  crowd  stared  its  fill, 


A  CRISIS  PAST  151 

and  the  Gordon  Highlanders  held  back  adventurous 
children.  "It  was  a  great  day,"  he  wrote,  "for  me 
and  the  King." 

It  was  even  greater  than  his  simple  spirit  had  con- 
ceived. English  papers  gravely  recorded  the  favour 
shown  him,  and  Philadelphia  papers  repeated  the 
news  a  trifle  more  emphatically.  Friends  applauded 
or  jeered,  according  to  their  frame  of  mind.  Henry 
James,  with  an  affectation  of  profound  humility, 
wrote,  asking  for  the  privilege  of  an  interview. 

"I  shall  not  expect  to  do  anything  but  come  up  to 
London  to  lunch  with  you  on  some  day  that  I  now 
appeal  to  you  very  kindly  (or  graciously,  as  they 
say  of  your  present  sort)  to  appoint.  I  naturally 
yearn  over  you,  with  your  rise  in  the  social  scale, 
more  even  than  usual;  and  it  is,  in  short,  indispen- 
sable that  I  shall  at  least  be  able  for  the  brief  here- 
after of  my  days  to  swagger  about  having  lunched 
with  you.  Don't  deprive  me  of  this  possibly  sole 
consolation  of  my  inferiority.  Make  me  some  simple 
sign  of  the  duration  of  your  days  in  London,  and  I 
will  come  for  as  many  hours  as  may  be,  and  spend 
them  all  as  near  you  as  one  may  now  approach. 
Would  n't  it  be  some  day  next  week?  I  am  supposing 
that  this  will  meet  you  in  London.  Heaven  send  it 
find  you  intermitting  a  little,  in  the  interest  of  rest, 
the  passion  and  pride  of  your  career." 

It  was  about  this  time  that  Dr.  White  came  slowly 


152  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

and  sadly  to  the  conclusion  that  he  was  not  strong 
enough  to  return  to  Philadelphia,  and  take  up  his 
lectures  in  the  winter.  He  had  tried  to  bully  Nature, 
and  had  consistently  refused  her  all  concessions. 
Now  he  found  that  the  "good  dame"  —  to  use 
Dr.  Furness'  too  partial  epithet  —  was  more  than  a 
match  for  him.  "I  am  still  weak  and  nervous,"  he 
wrote  to  Thomas  Robins;  "and  while  I  can  never 
under  any  circumstances  avoid  worrying  about 
something,  I'm  sure  I'd  have  more  to  trouble  me  if 
I  came  home  and  went  to  work.  I'm  only  part  of  a 
man  yet,  and  had,  I  suppose,  better  play  until  I  can 
stand  at  least  the  mild  knocks  of  life." 

His  play  would  have  bowled  over  Hercules.  He 
motored  on,  on,  on,  seeing  everything  that  was  to 
be  seen,  hustling  through  Scotland,  England,  and  the 
beautiful  towns  of  southern  France,  in  a  series  of 
one  night  stands.  If  by  good  luck  a  stormy  day  gave 
him  a  chance  to  loaf  and  invite  his  soul,  he  wrote 
reams  of  diary,  dozens  of  letters,  made  up  accounts, 
and  fatigued  himself  as  thoroughly  as  if  he  had  gone 
on  some  nerve-racking  expedition.  He  was  always 
a  punctilious  correspondent,  "very  scrupulous  and 
energetic"  (his  own  words)  in  answering  his  friends' 
letters,  and  very  prompt  and  patient  "even  when  I 
don't  care  a  damn  for  the  answeree."  It  was  doubtful 
wisdom.  Sargent  used  to  point  out  to  him  that  leav- 
ing letters  unanswered  saves  half  a  man's  life,  and 


A  CRISIS  PAST  153 

leaving  them  unread  saves  the  other  half.  As  for  the 
thousand  and  forty-seven  picture  postcards  which 
he  sent  home  in  less  than  four  months,  that  riotous 
excess,  that  "passionate  prodigality,"  would  have 
been  possible  to  no  other  traveller  in  Christendom. 

Monte  Carlo  left  him  cold.  He  had  no  love  for  gam- 
bling, and  no  taste  for  the  elaborately  meretricious. 
"I  think  I  could  be  almost  as  wicked  as  anybody 
here  without  half  trying,"  is  his  highly  characteristic 
comment.  The  only  person  who  interested  him  was 
"an  elderly,  respectable,  motherly  looking  lady,  who 
sat  by  the  dealer  at  trente-et-quarante,  and  who  got 
ten  thousand  francs  out  of  the  bank  while  we  were 
watching  her."  The  only  thing  which  really  pleased 
him  was  the  profound  quiet  of  his  rooms.  Southern 
France  he  had  found  to  be  little  less  noisy  than  Italy, 
and  to  have  the  same  reprehensible  habit  of  begin- 
ning life  early  in  the  day.  At  Brignoles  he  makes  this 
entry  in  his  diary: 

"October  29th.  6.15  A.M.:  If  it  had  not  been  for  a 
dozen  musicians  under  our  windows,  one  horse,  two 
roosters,  three  dogs,  four  cats,  a  cook  hi  a  kitchen,  a 
scullion  in  a  courtyard,  and  a  carbuncle  on  my  neck, 
I  'd  have  slept  very  well  last  night.  Letty  did  anyway. 
Everybody  in  Brignoles  —  except  Letty  —  is  now  up 
and  making  some  kind  of  a  noise.  I  wish  I  had  a 
horn  and  a  drum.  I  feel  out  of  it." 

With  his  usual  amazing  good  luck,  he  had  reached 


164  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

Rome,  and  was  actually  in  St.  Peter's,  when  the 
bomb  was  exploded  on  November  18th.  He  was  not 
a  church-goer,  and  seldom  attended  a  service.  Yet 
he  did  hear  Mass  that  day,  did  linger  to  see  the 
great  relics  exposed  in  the  logge,  and  did  stroll  about 
afterwards  long  enough  to  be  present  when  the  out- 
rage occurred.  The  bomb  exploded  near  the  beautiful 
tomb  of  Clement  the  Thirteenth.  There  was  a  rend- 
ing noise  and  a  column  of  black  smoke.  Most  of  the 
people  left  in  the  Cathedral  ran  to  the  doors.  A  few, 
including  the  Whites,  ran  to  the  smoke.  They  were 
so  swift  that  Dr.  White  was  able  to  gather  up  a 
handful  of  nails  and  scraps  of  iron  before  the  guards 
appeared,  and  drove  back  the  now  clamorous  and 
excited  mob.  It  was  a  remarkable  experience.  Phil- 
adelphia newspapers  took  due  notice  of  it;  and  one 
journal,  permitting  itself  a  pardonable  latitude  in  the 
matter  of  detail,  reported  that  Dr.  White  was  travel- 
ling through  Russia,  when  a  bomb  flung  by  a  nihilist 
in  the  streets  of  St.  Petersburg  exploded  at  his  feet. 

The  trip  to  Egypt,  so  long  in  abeyance,  was  now 
settled  upon.  Of  all  Dr.  White's  friends,  Henry  James 
alone  opposed  it.  He  had  heard  vague  rumours  of 
"unrest,"  of  "heavings"  beneath  the  surface.  He 
had  been  informed  by  the  usual  "good  authority" 
that  it  was  not  a  safe  country  for  a  "delicate  fe- 
male" to  enter.  "You,  William,"  he  wrote,  "are  not 
a  female,  and  your  delicacy  is  a  thing  of  the  past, 


A  CRISIS  PAST  155 

when  I  have  known  you  really  quite  indelicate;  but  I 
kind  of  fidget  over  Letitia,  and  am  hoping  that,  in 
the  eastward  current,  as  you  have  now  sometime 
been,  you  are  not  without  full  information  and  re- 
assurance on  this  general  head.  If  you've  never 
thought  of  the  matter  at  all,  think  of  it  now,  — 
always  for  Letitia,  since  I  don't  care  so  much  what 
becomes  of  you.  I  give  you,  of  course,  my  little 
chatter  for  what  it  is  worth,  and  can  but  take  for 
granted  that  you  are  not  going  it  blind,  but  know 
where  you  are,  and  what  you  are  doing.  You  are  not 
irresponsible  infants,  and  won't  behave  as  such. 
Still,  for  the  last  word,  don't,  William,  drag  the 
delicate  Letitia!  And  do,  Letitia,  wrestle  with  the 
reckless  William!" 

It  may  be  imagined  how  much  weight  this  coun- 
sel had  with  either  of  the  enterprising  tourists.  Dr. 
White  admitted  that  it  gave  the  Egyptian  trip  "a 
faint  —  a  very  faint  —  spice  of  adventure,"  which 
was  strengthened  when  a  British  soldier  told  him  in 
Cairo  what  precautions  for  safety  had  been  taken. 
Mrs.  White  probably  never  thought  of  the  matter 
again.  The  nostalgia  which  lay  in  wait  for  the  doc- 
tor's unoccupied  moments  (they  were  few)  had 
attacked  him  in  Italy,  —  especially  on  the  days  of 
the  Penn- Cornell  and  Army -Navy  games,  when  he 
did  not  know  whether  to  give  thanks  or  to  curse, 
and  so  felt  all  the  bitterness  of  exile.  The  novelty  of 


156  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

Egypt  was  expected  to  heal  these  sick  dreams  of 
home.  His  enthusiasm  for  fresh  fields  of  travel  was 
as  keen  as  in  his  youthful  days,  his  curiosity  was  as 
insatiable.  He  never  knew  —  and  to  some  of  us  it 
would  be  a  heavy  loss  —  the  exquisite  and  unworthy 
pleasures  of  the  idle  tourist,  who  is  content  to  be  a 
part  of  his  strange  surroundings,  and  who  refuses  to 
be  hounded  into  sight-seeing.  The  joy  of  leaving 
Yarrow  unvisited  was  never  his  to  tell. 

That  he  and  Mrs.  White  should  have  climbed  the 
Great  Pyramid,  and  have  crawled  into  its  burial 
chamber,  was  inevitable.  "I  would  n't  have  missed 
entering  if  I'd  have  had  to  wriggle  in  on  my  belly," 
he  wrote  emphatically.  That,  with  the  slow  current 
of  the  Nile  inviting  him  to  repose,  he  should  have 
made  every  excursion  and  visited  every  ruin,  was 
equally  a  matter  of  course.  But  when  it  came  to  the 
dubious  delight  of  riding  on  a  camel  fifteen,  eighteen, 
and  twenty  miles  a  day,  his  enjoyment  is  harder  to 
analyze.  Yet  there  were  many  amusing  experiences 
which  he  would  have  missed  had  he  been  a  shade 
less  energetic,  notably  a  Soudanese  wedding  at 
Wady  Haifa,  where  he  figured  as  a  distinguished 
guest.  The  bride's  dowry  consisted  of  two  nose-rings, 
a  brass  anklet,  and  a  six-inch  fringe  of  glass  beads. 
The  groom  possessed  a  goat-skin  water  bag  and  a 
bone-handled  dagger.  With  this  simple  and  sufficient 
equipment,  free  from  the  tyranny  of  things,  from 


A  CRISIS  PAST  157 

the  burden  of  rubbish  which  we  carry  to  our  graves, 
the  young  couple  faced  an  unencumbered  and  con- 
tented future.  There  was  plenty  of  dancing,  which 
costs  nothing;  and  Dr.  White  treated  the  donkey  boys 
to  all  the  Arabic  beer  which  they  could  drink,  with 
results  that  would  have  scandalized  our  peremptory 
prohibitionists. 

On  the  whole,  Egypt  was  beneficent  to  the  inva- 
lid. A  carbuncle  and  poisoned  flea-bites  marred  his 
pleasure  in  Cairo  ("I  just  have  to  keep  out  of  the 
charming  and  attractive  little  cesspools  and  sewers 
which  they  call  streets,"  he  wrote  regretfully);  but 
the  life-giving  air  of  the  Nile  could  not  fail  to  in- 
vigorate him.  He  had  for  the  East  as  strong  a  sym- 
pathy as  was  possible  for  a  man  to  whom  one  of  its 
great  inspirations  was  a  dead  letter,  a  blank  leaf  in 
the  book  of  fate.  His  careless  summary  of  Mahomet 
as  "an  epileptic  lunatic"  (and  this  after  visiting  the 
mosque  el  Azhar  with  its  library  and  students),  marks 
the  barrier  which  divided  him  from  a  high  tide  of 
human  emotions,  and  blocked  his  historic  perspective. 
Epileptic  lunatics  have,  indeed,  started  religious  move- 
ments; but  these  have  perished  with  their  founders. 
They  have  made  history;  but  only  its  brief  and  dol- 
orous records.  No  epileptic  lunatic  has  ever  been  a 
nation-builder,  a  controlling  influence  in  the  world's 
life,  a  potent  force  and  a  spiritual  solace  to  millions 
of  men  through  the  passing  of  the  centuries. 


158  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

On  the  24th  of  January  the  Whites  sailed  from 
Alexandria,  and  on  the  llth  of  February  they  reached 
Philadelphia.  Three  hundred  University  students 
were  lined  up  at  the  Broad  Street  Station,  singing 
"Hail,  Pennsylvania!"  as  the  train  pulled  in.  When 
they  caught  sight  of  the  familiar  gray  head,  the 
broad  shoulders  and  the  broader  smile,  they  cheered 
vociferously,  and  formed  themselves  into  a  guard 
of  honour  to  escort  the  wanderer  home.  Many  wel- 
coming friends  were  also  present,  and  from  all  over 
the  country  came  letters  and  telegrams  of  congratu- 
lation. Dr.  Furness,  then  ill  at  Wallingford,  was  com- 
pelled to  write  the  loving  words  he  would  have  liked 
to  speak. 

MY  DEAR,  DEAR  WHITE! 

Heartiest  of  all  hearty  welcomes  to  your  home. 
You  never  wrote  a  line  more  delightful  to  your 
friends  than  "I  am  as  well  as  ever  again." 

I  have  been  counting  upon  nothing  with  more 
eagerness  than  upon  the  pleasure  of  greeting  you  on 
Wednesday  at  The  Triplets;  but  you  may  possibly 
have  heard  it  remarked  that  man  proposes  but  God 
disposes.  I  have  been  completely  tied  up  by  the  re- 
sults of  overwork,  complicated  with  grippe;  and  my 
physician  will  not  listen  to  my  going  out  in  the  night 
air;  so  I  must,  perforce,  forego  The  Triplets  next 
Wednesday. 


A  CRISIS  PAST  159 

Who  shall  say  that  your  restoration  to  health  be 
not  due  to  the  prayers  of  our  dear  friend,  St.  Agnes? 
'T  is  a  certain  fact,  if  fervour  spells  efficacy. 

Do  let  me  send  my  sincere  congratulations  to  that 
happy  woman,  your  wife,  and  believe  me, 
Yours  affectionately 

HORACE  HOWARD  FURNESS 

There  were  receptions  and  public  dinners.  There 
were  many  speeches  called  for,  and  a  few  made.  Dr. 
White  was  never  enamoured  of  speech-making.  He 
could  but  say  out  of  the  fulness  of  his  heart  that,  of 
all  sights  in  the  world,  the  best  and  dearest  to  him 
were  the  faces  of  his  friends,  and  the  dear  familiar 
shabbiness  of  Rittenhouse  Square. 


CHAPTER  IX 
FOUR  BUSY  YEARS 

IF  Dr.  White  had  rashly  dreamed  that  the  sur- 
render of  his  practice  would  mean  for  him  a  life 
of  leisure  and  tranquillity,  he  was  destined  to  be 
rudely  undeceived.  Perhaps  leisure  was  as  alien  to 
his  habits  as  tranquillity  was  alien  to  his  disposition. 
Certain  it  is  that  work  found  him  out  wherever  he 
went,  and  that  the  "rest,"  of  which  he  was  wont  to 
talk  a  little  vaguely,  formed  no  part  of  his  earthly 
experience.  Three  months  after  his  return  to  Phila- 
delphia, he  was  offered,  and  accepted,  the  post  of 
Advisory  Surgeon  to  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad 
Company.  The  position  was  a  new  one,  and  repre- 
sented a  needed  consolidation.  The  doctor  was  given 
supervision  and  absolute  control  of  the  medical 
department  of  the  great  corporation  which  left  no 
part  of  its  business  to  chance,  and  which  for  many, 
many  years,  down  to  the  spring  of  1918,  enjoyed  the 
proud  distinction  of  being  the  best-run  railroad  in 
the  world.  The  Company's  hospitals  in  the  mining 
regions  were  put  under  the  Advisory  Surgeon's  care. 
He  was  responsible  for  their  management,  equipment, 
and  staff.  He  was  consulted  in  the  appointment  of 
their  physicians,  and  he  gave  personal  supervision 


FOUR  BUSY  YEARS  161 

when  serious  surgery  was  required.  The  work  in  no 
way  interfered  with  his  University  lectures;  but  it 
insured  a  brand-new  assortment  of  responsibilities, 
and  absorbed  many  hours  of  an  already  well-filled 
life. 

This  being  the  case,  there  was  no  apparent  need 
for  his  associates  to  urge  upon  him  fresh  fields  of 
labour.  Treves,  who  was  forever  driven  by  the  demon 
of  print,  wrote  books  about  every  place  he  visited, 
and  counselled  Dr.  White  to  follow  in  his  footsteps. 
He  wanted  him  to  write  mild  antiquarian  papers  on 
English  villages  and  manor  houses.  Dr.  Weir  Mitchell, 
who  could  do  anything  he  put  his  hand  to,  laughed 
at  the  scruples  of  a  man  who  pleaded  that  the  field 
of  letters  was  not  his  bailiwick,  and  that  perhaps  it 
was  as  well  to  keep  out  of  it.  "You  are  a  blessed  old 
humbug,"  he  wrote  breezily,  "to  talk  about  the  use 
of  language.  You  know  that  few  men  have  a  better 
control  of  English.  You  have  used  your  powers  but 
little,  and  needlessly  underrate  an  unusual  capacity." 
Thomas  Robins,  with  a  limitless  confidence  hi  his 
friend's  endowments,  proposed  that  he  should  write 
a  novel,  and  the  suggestion  was  repeated  to  Henry 
James,  who  said  briefly  and  enigmatically,  "Why 
not?"  "I  fancy,"  commented  the  doctor,  "that  he 
knows  why  not  as  well  as  I  do." 

All  this  time  there  was  much  work  to  be  done  at 
the  University,  there  were  papers  for  medical  journals 


163  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

encroaching  upon  every  spare  hour,  there  were  the 
new  and  unloved  football  rules  to  be  assimilated  and 
made  the  best  of,  and  the  Army  and  Navy  games  to 
be  kept  in  good  running  order.  There  was  also  the 
supremely  important  business  of  getting  well,  which 
never  received  the  attention  it  deserved.  Dr.  White 
had  fondly  hoped  that  the  summer  of  1907  would 
find  him  tramping  through  the  Engadine,  and  climb- 
ing mountains  with  his  old  ardour  and  endurance. 
He  was  profoundly  disappointed  when  Dr.  Osier 
pronounced  him  to  be  still  unfit  for  these  strenuous 
joys.  No  hard  walks,  no  climbs,  no  carrying  of  knap- 
sacks (why,  in  Heaven's  name,  should  any  man  not 
compelled  to  carry  a  knapsack  solicit  the  privilege!), 
was  Osier's  verdict;  and  so  much  danger  did  he  appre- 
hend from  undue  fatigue  that  he  wrote  twice  to  his  way- 
ward patient,  entreating  him  to  be  cautious.  "Don't 
rush!"  he  pleaded.  "Don't  put  any  extra  strain  upon 
your  heart!"  "Don't  forget  that  you  have  no  longer 
the  ostrich-like  digestion  of  twenty-five  years  ago!" 
Wise  counsel  which  no  friendly  feeling  could  make 
welcome.  "I  wish  I  hadn't  asked  him  to  examine 
me,"  said  Dr.  W^hite  dejectedly. 

Yet  there  were  attractions  in  England  which 
might  well  have  outweighed  the  pleasure  of  moun- 
tain climbing.  Friends  were  there  to  welcome  him. 
Sargent,  whom  he  had  not  seen  for  nearly  two  years, 
was  in  London  this  season,  dallying  with  the  fond 


FOUR  BUSY  YEARS  163 

illusion  that  he  was  about  to  give  up  portrait-paint- 
ing, and  answering  all  remonstrances  with  the  strong 
statement,  "I  hate  doing  pawtreets."  Henry  James 
was  there  also,  aghast  as  usual  at  Dr.  White's  "per- 
verse and  incalculable  rhythms";  and  Treves,  who 
had  been  so  loaded  with  honours  in  the  past  twelve 
months  that  his  back  was  nigh  to  breaking.  To  him 
and  to  Sir  Francis  Laking,  the  King's  second  surgeon, 
had  been  granted,  in  recognition  of  their  "great  skill 
and  unremitting  attention,"  the  supreme  dignity  of 
bearing  a  golden  lion  on  their  arms.  Such  a  thing,  it 
was  said,  had  never  been  known  since  the  days  of 
James  the  First,  when  that  disconcertingly  demo- 
cratic monarch  had  permitted  his  apothecary,  Gideon 
Delaune,  to  bear  on  his  arms  (if  he  had  any)  a  golden 
lion  passant  on  a  red  field.  A  more  substantial  mark 
of  favour  was  the  beautiful  "Thatched  House  Lodge," 
in  Richmond  Park,  which  King  Edward  assigned  to 
Treves  as  a  residence.  In  its  charming  grounds  stood, 
and  still  stands,  the  original  "Thatched  House," 
decorated  by  Angelica  Kauffmann,  and  preserved 
with  admirable  care.  It  was  a  priceless  boon  to  a 
man  who  had  to  be  near  London,  yet  hated  to  live 
in  it,  who  said  —  and  believed  —  that  the  air  of  big 
cities  was  "poisonous,"  and  who  loved  the  country 
with  a  Briton's  hardy  and  tenacious  affection. 

To  prosper  gracefully  cannot,  in  the  nature  of 
things,  be  impossible;  but  it  is  an  art  which  has  yet 


164  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

to  be  demonstrated.  Sir  Frederick  would  have  been 
more  or  less  than  human  if  his  brilliant  successes  had 
left  no  mark  upon  him.  Dr.  White,  who  was  heart- 
ily American,  and,  in  his  own  fashion,  democratic 
(no  two  men  are  democratic  along  the  same  lines), 
thought  that  his  friend,  when  he  went  to  visit  him  in 
Dorsetshire,  had  grown  a  trifle  superfine.  Treves  was 
ready  enough  to  sigh  over  the  old  unregenerate  days, 
but  he  would  do  nothing  to  compromise  his  present 
exalted  position.  He  had  become  strangely  fastidi- 
ous about  the  clothes  he  wore  to  church  and  garden 
parties;  he  regarded  bank  holidays  very  much  as  a 
conservative  Boston  gentleman  might  regard  a  re- 
union of  the  "Elks";  he  did  not  like  to  see  his  guest 
bicycling  hatless  over  the  country  "like  a  clerk,"  or 
breaking  eggs  into  a  glass,  —  having  never  listened 
to  Dr.  Weir  Mitchell's  powerful  and  pleasing  argu- 
ments in  favour  of  that  cleanly  custom.  It  took  the 
clear  understanding  and  kindly  offices  of  Lady  Treves 
and  Mrs.  White  to  keep  their  distinguished  husbands 
in  smooth  running  order. 

Dorsetshire  had  many  attractions.  Thomas  Hardy 
was  a  near  neighbour,  and  a  friendly  one.  The  bare 
simplicity  of  his  house  amazed  Dr.  White,  who  all 
his  life  was  powerless  to  resist  possessions;  but  two 
"nice  cats"  softened  its  austerity,  and  lent  to  the 
great  novelist  and  his  guests  the  privilege  of  their 
suave  and  gentle  company. 


FOUR  BUSY  YEARS  165 

Other  acquaintances,  less  famous  but  equally 
agreeable,  did  the  honour  of  the  countryside;  and  one 
clever  Englishwoman  endeared  herself  for  life  to  the 
highly  receptive  American  by  telling  him  the  story 
of  an  ancient  village  dame  who,  when  ill,  said  she 
wished  she  were  "in  Beelzebub's  bosom."  "You 
mean,"  corrected  the  startled  parson,  "in  Abraham's 
bosom."  "Ah!"  sighed  the  unconcerned  patient,  "if 
you'd  been  a  lone  widow  as  long  as  I  be,  you'd  not 
care  'oose  bosom  it  was." 

•  Abbey  was  devoting  his  whole  summer  to  the 
decorations  for  the  Capitol  at  Harrisburg,  and  Dr. 
White,  more  confident  than  ever  that  these  virile 
and  deeply  coloured  canvases  would  be  "the  saving 
of  that  monument  of  graft,"  wrote  a  long  account  of 
them,  and  sent  it  home  to  be  printed  in  the  Phila- 
delphia papers.  The  symbolism  of  the  designs  pleased 
him  no  less  than  the  execution,  because  it  was,  for 
the  most  part,  of  that  uncomplicated  order  which 
conveys  its  meaning  instantly  to  the  eye  of  the  spec- 
tator. Symbols  which  require  little  guide-books  to 
explain  them  are  remote  from  the  simplicity  of  dec- 
orative art.  What  interests  us  is,  not  what  the 
decorator  meant,  but  what  he  did;  not  what  was  in 
his  mind,  but  what  was  in  his  finger-tips;  not  how 
deeply  he  felt  the  subtleties  of  his  subject,  but  how 
successfully  he  mastered  the  difficulties  of  his  craft. 
Dr.  White's  timely  praise  had  the  effect  of  sharp- 


166  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

ening  public  curiosity,  already  much  concerned  over 
the  Capitol  decorations.  The  "Philadelphia  In- 
quirer" embellished  his  paper  with  a  somewhat 
rakish  picture  of  the  writer,  felicitously  inscribed: 
"Rev.  J.  William  White."  "This,"  wrote  the  doc- 
tor to  Thomas  Robins,  "is  a  late  recognition  of  my 
piety  and  worth.  It  has  led  to  sarcastic  letters  from 
friends  like  Effingham  Morris,  to  whom  I  have  re- 
plied in  a  truly  Christian  spirit  of  forgiveness." 

The  hours  spent  in  Abbey's  studio  were  to  Dr. 
White  a  never  failing  source  of  interest.  He  was  ready 
to  pose  as  a  model  whenever  he  was  wanted.  He  liked, 
in  the  mornings,  to  watch  the  artist  sketching  and 
grouping  his  figures;  and,  at  night,  to  see  the  magnified 
sketches  thrown  by  means  of  lantern  slides  on  the 
great  canvases  stretched  for  their  reception.  "Then 
the  outlines  and  memoranda  of  the  lights  and  shad- 
ows, etc.,  are  rapidly  gone  over,  and  avast  deal  of  labour 
is  saved.  In  an  hour,  William  Penn  and  four  Indians 
were  placed  on  the  canvas,  and  roughly  sketched  in." 

Abbey  confided  to  his  friend  that  he  thought  sev- 
eral additional  panels  were  needed  to  complete  his 
designs  for  the  "Founding  of  Pennsylvania."  These 
panels  formed  no  part  of  his  original  conception  of 
the  subject,  or  of  his  original  bargain  with  a  board 
which  might  be  reasonably  reluctant  to  pay  for  work 
it  had  not  ordered.  The  more  he  considered  them, 
however,  the  more  essential  they  seemed  to  his  pur- 


FOUR  BUSY  YEARS  !  167 

pose;  so,  like  the  true  artist  that  he  was,  he  wrote  to 
his  friend  in  December,  1908,  bidding  him  ask  space 
for  the  panels,  and  authorizing  him  to  offer  them 
without  payment.  This  Dr.  White  did,  and  the  offer 
was  briskly  accepted.  Politicians  may  have  mar- 
velled a  little  at  such  a  method  of  doing  business,  but 
they  found  no  cause  for  complaint. 

Dr.  Charles  Penrose,  who  had  never  abandoned 
the  pleasures  of  the  hunt,  met  with  one  of  its  penal- 
ties in  the  autumn  of  1907,  when  he  was  camping  in 
the  mountains  of  northwestern  Montana.  A  she  bear, 
whose  cub  he  had  shot,  attacked  him  so  fiercely  that 
he  was  badly  torn  before  he  could  despatch  the  en- 
raged animal.  He  maintained,  as  became  a  huntsman, 
that  the  bear  was  within  her  rights,  and  that  he  had 
no  kick  coming;  but  the  justness  of  this  point  of 
view,  while  soothing  to  his  mind  and  salutary  to  his 
soul,  left  his  body  in  a  terrible  condition.  He  was 
taken  to  the  Mayo  Hospital  in  Rochester  as  soon  as 
he  could  bear  the  journey,  and  brought  home  when 
partly  convalescent.  Dr.  White  was  even  then  much 
concerned  over  his  condition.  "Charley  Penrose  is 
improving,"  he  wrote  Thomas  Robins;  "but  he  has 
a  wrist  which  gives  me  a  good  deal  of  anxiety.  Mar- 
tin is  attending  him,  and  I  am  in  consultation.  Our 
differences  of  opinion  (which  are  many)  are  marked  by 
vituperation  and  profanity,  —  Charley  finding  fault 
indiscriminately  with  both  of  us." 


168  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

By  this  time  the  farm  was  in  fair  running  order. 
Mrs.  Morton's  herculean  efforts  had  made  the  house 
habitable  and  attractive,  and  the  workmen  were  be- 
ing driven  one  by  one  from  the  domain  they  had  so 
long  misruled.  Dr.  White's  conception  of  a  pastoral 
life  was  to  spend  hours  every  day  in  the  saddle,  rid- 
ing with  Mrs.  White  in  the  morning,  and  alone  in 
the  afternoon,  and  fatiguing  himself  as  thoroughly 
as  if  he  had  been  carrying  a  knapsack  over  a  Swiss 
pass.  His  friends,  especially  those  who  lived  in 
Europe,  thought  of  him  as  an  American  "Farmer 
John,"  inspecting  his  crops  and  his  poultry,  or  con- 
templating from  his  own  rooftree  those  aspects  of 
nature  which  were  spoken  of  in  Hannah  More's  day 
as  "moral  scenery."  Osier  and  Treves  and  Abbey  vig- 
orously applauded  this  serene  absorption.  Sargent, 
who  cared  nothing  for  moral  scenery,  and  who  was 
beset  by  groundless  alarms  lest  bucolic  pleasures 
should  wean  his  friend  from  their  old  haunts,  wrote 
him  warningly  to  stop  "watching  mangel- wurzels, 
and  listening  to  black  Leghorns  and  Plymouth 
Rocks."  "These,  I  am  aware,  are  the  joys  of  the 
landed  proprietor;  but  let  them  not  take  exclusive 
possession  of  your  heart.  They  beget  a  terrible  re- 
spectability, and  an  awful  pride.  And  when  they 
have  seared  your  soul,  you  will  suddenly  find  that 
you  don't  care  a  damn  for  mangel-wurzels  after  all." 

Never  in  his  correspondence  with  Dr.  White  did 


FOUR  BUSY  YEARS  169 

Sargent  consent  to  sully  his  pen  by  writing  the  word 
"damn."  He  always  stencilled  it  in  large  letters,  red 
or  black  as  the  fancy  seized  him.  When  red,  it  took 
on  a  lurid  significance.  When  black,  it  had  an  im- 
pressive solemnity,  reminding  the  reader  of  that 
clergyman  whom  Thomas  Fuller  commended,  inas- 
much as  "he  could  pronounce  the  word  damn  with 
such  emphasis  as  left  a  doleful  echo  in  the  hearer's 
mind  a  long  time  after." 

Jlenry  James,  who  could  never  think  of  Dr. 
White  except  in  violent  action,  and  who  knew  that 
riding  had  for  the  time  supplanted  all  other  athletic 
exercises,  pictured  him  as  an  Arab  or  a  Tartar,  for- 
ever astride  of  his  beast,  "leading  a  free  quadrupedal 
life,  erect  and  nimble  in  the  midst  of  the  browsing 
herds.  ...  It  all  sounds  delightfully  pastoral  to  one 
whose  'stable*  consists  of  the  go-cart  in  which  the 
gardener  brings  up  (from  the  station)  the  luggage  of 
visitors  who  advance  successfully  to  the  stage  of 
that  question  of  transport;  and  whose  outhouses  are 
the  shed  under  which  my  henchman  'attends  to  the 
boots '  of  those  confronted  by  the  subsequent  phase  of 
early  matutinal  departure"  (is  that  James  or  John- 
son?) .  "All  of  which  means  that  I  do  seem  to  read  into 
your  rich  record  the  happiest  evidences  of  health  as 
well  as  of  wealth,  and  that  you  take  my  breath  away." 

He  took  the  breath  away  from  friends  less  con- 
templative and  less  stationary  than  Mr.  James. 


170  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

Even  those  who  knew  him  best,  and  who  shared  his 
tastes  and  amusements,  were  staggered  by  the  im- 
petuosity of  a  man  whom  years  could  not  sober,  or 
illness  daunt.  "I  weigh  a  hundred  and  seventy 
pounds,"  he  wrote  to  Thomas  Robins  in  June,  1908. 
"I'm  in  good  hard  condition.  I've  spent  the  last 
days  in  the  hay  fields  with  pitchfork  and  rake,  and 
have  done  a  man's  work.  I'm  keeping  three  saddle 
horses  exercised.  I've  jumped  four  feet,  six  inches, 
and,  if  you  don't  believe  it,  I  've  a  photograph  taken 
by  Alan  Wilson  at  the  time.  I  have  a  horse  that 
whirls  and  rears  at  automobiles,  and  I  don't  care  a 
damn.  So  my  nerves  must  be  hi  as  good  shape  as  my 
muscles.  I've  had  one  fall  (jumping),  and  tore  some 
of  my  probably  large  assortment  of  internal  ab- 
dominal adhesions.  I  was  under  the  weather  for 
three  days,  but  was  on  horseback  and  jumping  again 
on  the  fourth.  It  could  not  have  been  serious." 

All  this  meant  that  Dr.  White  had  unalterably 
resolved  to  fling  prudence  to  the  winds,  and  escape 
in  August  to  Switzerland.  It  was  not  only  the  zest 
for  tramping,  and  climbing,  and  wearing  himself  out, 
which  impelled  him  to  this  indiscretion.  He  loved 
those  heights  and  valleys  with  a  faithful  affection. 
"I  have  been  asked,"  he  once  wrote,  "if  we  did  n't 
get  tired  of  the  same  mountains  and  the  same  walks. 
Why,  if  there  were  only  one  mountain  and  one  walk, 
there  would  be  variety  enough." 


FOUR  BUSY  YEARS  171 

There  spoke  the  true  artist.  Yet  it  must  be  ad- 
mitted that  this  nature-lover  spent  little  time  in 
dalliance  with  his  mistress,  but  wooed  her  after  the 
rough  fashion  of  a  conqueror.  There  is  in  the  diary 
of  1908  an  account  of  a  ten  days'  tramp  from  Riffelalp 
to  St.  Moritz  (with  wide  deviations)  which  equals,  if 
it  does  not  surpass,  the  records  of  earlier  years.  Read- 
ing it,  we  are  forced  to  admit  that,  not  adventure 
only,  but  mere  endurance  has  an  inexplicable  charm 
for  those  who  are  strong  enough  and  brave  enough 
to  endure.  For  seven  days,  Paine  and  Orthwein  were 
members  of  the  party.  For  nine  days,  Mrs.  White 
tramped  heroically  by  her  husband's  side.  The  tenth 
day  he  crossed  the  Julier  Pass  alone.  On  the  third 
evening,  after  a  walk  of  twenty-two  miles  over  diffi- 
cult ground,  he  makes  this  cheerful  entry  in  the 
diary : 

"To-night  my  two  little  toes,  my  left  great  toe, 
and  my  left  heel  burn  as  if  my  feet  had  been  run  over. 
My  calves  and  thighs  ache,  and  hurt  to  the  touch. 
My  back  is  sore  and  strained,  and  my  side  bruised 
from  yesterday's  fall.  My  shoulders  feel  the  effects 
of  carrying  a  heavy  knapsack.  My  face  is  peeling 
from  sunburn.  I  am  *  creepy'  from  fatigue  and  the 
nervous  exhaustion  due  to  the  pain  in  my  feet. 
Otherwise,  barring  a  little  overaction  of  the  heart, 
I  am  all  right." 

The  ninth  day  brought  them  to  Miihlen.  On  the 


172  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

tenth  it  was  snowing  hard.  Mrs.  White's  shoe  had 
burst,  her  heel  was  blistered,  her  ankle  badly  swollen. 
Under  these  discouraging  circumstances,  Dr.  White 
(handsomely  conceding  that  her  record  was  "well 
enough  for  a  woman,  and  ought  to  content  her") 
insisted  upon  her  completing  the  trip  by  diligence; 
while  he  donned  clothes  and  shoes,  wet  from  the 
storm  of  the  day  before,  and  started  for  his  climb  in 
the  snow.  The  drifts  grew  deeper  and  deeper  as  he 
ascended.  He  struggled  through  them  with  increas- 
ing difficulty,  and  a  well-defined  apprehension  lest  he 
should  give  out  on  this  lonely  way.  Six  hours  of 
exertion,  too  severe  to  be  exhilarating,  brought  him 
to  the  summit  of  the  Pass.  "At  the  top  I  put  my 
hand  on  one  of  the  stone  pillars  erected  by  Augustus, 
thought  a  few  noble  thoughts,  looked  at  the  road 
before  me  going  dovm,  thanked  God  for  the  attrac- 
tion of  gravitation,  and  started  for  the  Engadine  at 
a  gait  which  would  n't  have  disgraced  Weston.  I 
actually  did  the  next  five  miles  in  one  hour  and 
seven  minutes." 

It  was  natural  enough  that  this  prowess  should 
have  been  a  matter  of  pride  to  a  man  who,  a  year 
before,  had  been  leading  the  cautious  life  of  a  con- 
valescent. His  delight,  when  the  long  tramp  was 
done,  bubbles  over  in  the  pages  of  the  diary.  "If  any 
gentleman  of  gambling  propensities  wants  to  bet,  I  '11 
back  myself  to  walk,  climb,  swim,  ride,  bicycle,  row, 


FOUR  BUSY  YEARS  173 

or  do  anything  else  not  dependent  upon  grace  of 
movement,  against  any  man  he  can  produce,  who  is 
near-sighted,  white-haired,  has  an  irritable  heart 
(and  temper),  has  had  eight  inches  of  gut  cut  out 
within  two  years,  and  is  within  three  months  of  fifty- 
eight.  All  ball  games  barred." 

A  merry  and  a  light-hearted  boast.  But  three  years 
later,  in  the  winter  of  1911,  Dr.  White  ruefully  ad- 
mitted that  the  rheumatic  neuritis  in  his  right  arm 
was  directly  attributable  to  the  exposure  and  fatigue 
of  that  day  on  the  Julier  Pass.  It  began  to  trouble 
him  before  the  close  of  the  summer,  and  he  had 
suffered  from  it  at  intervals  ever  since. 

There  was  no  premonition  of  these  evil  times  in 
the  joyous  weeks  at  St.  Moritz.  Flushed  with  tri- 
umph, brimming,  as  he  believed,  with  health  and 
vigour,  the  doctor  despatched  a  letter  to  Effingham 
Morris,  pleading  with  him,  as  he  had  pleaded  many 
times  before,  to  stop  work  and  begin  to  play. 

"I  don't  like  the  persistence  of  that  discomfort  in 
the  back,"  he  wrote  affectionately.  "In  the  light  of 
its  duration,  of  your  broken  sleep,  and  of  your  in- 
temperance in  the  matter  of  work,  it  begins  to  look 
like  a  symptom  of  exhaustion;  and  only  emphasizes 
the  need  of  a  real  holiday  of  sufficient  duration  to  do 
you  permanent  good.  So  now  you  know,  —  and  don't 
meet  me  with  some  fool  excuses  about  the  *  impossi- 
bility of  staying  away  longer.'  Some  time  we'll  both 


174  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

stay  away  for  millions  of  centuries,  and  things  will 
go  on  just  the  same.  But  don't  hurry  that  day!" 

In  November,  1908,  Dr.  White  was  appointed  by 
President  Roosevelt  a  member  of  the  new  Army 
Medical  Reserve  Corps.  These  men  were  to  compose 
a  strong  medical  staff  who  would  serve  as  first  lieu- 
tenants in  time  of  war,  who  could  be  put  in  immediate 
charge  of  base  hospitals,  and  appoint  their  assist- 
ants. The  President  was  well  aware  that  the  doctors 
who  served  in  the  Spanish-American  War  were  in- 
effectively organized,  and  were  too  often  political 
appointees.  The  Reserve  Corps  was  part  of  his  "Pre- 
paredness" programme,  so  distasteful  to  the  senti- 
mental and  inert. 

To  Dr.  Wfaite  it  was  a  wise  and  welcome  measure. 
His  enthusiasm  for  Roosevelt  deepened  with  each 
year  of  his  life.  His  delight  when  the  President 
received  the  Nobel  Prize  was  equalled  by  his  admi- 
ration for  the  dignified  use  which  the  recipient  endea- 
voured to  make  of  it.  He  was  pathetically  ready  to 
welcome  Taft's  nomination,  and  to  uphold  him 
against  all  doubters.  "On  the  whole,"  he  wrote  to 
Thomas  Robins  in  the  spring  of  1908,  "I  think  the 
anti-Roosevelt  party  at  the  Club  is  losing  ground. 
Three  or  four  months  ago,  Taf t,  as  the  next  President, 
was  an  *  absurd  impossibility.'  Now  they  say  little  or 
nothing  against  him,  but  content  themselves  with 
looking  gloomy,  and  predicting  Bryan's  election." 


FOUR  BUSY  YEARS  175 

In  other  letters  to  the  same  sympathetic  corre- 
spondent he  refuses  —  wisely  —  to  doubt  Owen 
Wister's  allegiance,  and  exults  because  "Ned  Smith 
reluctantly  approves  of  Roosevelt's  having  sent 
troops  to  Nevada,  to  suppress  disturbances  on  the 
part  of  that  gang  of  murderers  known  as  the  Western 
Federation  of  Miners."  After  a  dinner  at  the  "Ma- 
hogany Tree,"  he  reports  that  he  sat  next  to  Charles 
Francis  Adams,  —  "a  bigoted,  intolerant,  self-opin- 
ionated, interesting,  intelligent  Yankee.  He  is  'agin* 
the  President,  and  his  reasons  seemed,  if  possible, 
feebler  than  those  I  am  accustomed  to  hear." 

Dr.  White  was  ever  a  strong  antagonist  in  an 
argument.  It  might  have  been  said  of  him,  as  of 
another  great  surgeon,  that  he  was  "formidable 
when  he  was  in  the  wrong,  irresistible  when  he  was 
in  the  right."  He  fought  with  the  broadsword  rather 
than  with  the  rapier,  and  he  had  great  difficulty  hi 
controlling  his  temper  when  he  was  very  much  in 
earnest.  But  he  never  argued  unless  acquainted  with 
his  facts.  He  had  a  tenacious  memory  and  a  lifelong 
habit  of  accuracy.  No  access  of  feeling  could  betray 
him  into  a  groundless  assertion,  and  no  pity  for  an 
opponent's  weakness  could  stay  his  heavy  hand.  He 
drove  his  weapon  home,  and,  it  must  be  confessed, 
he  turned  it  in  the  wound.  When  the  conversation 
strayed  beyond  physics,  athletics,  politics,  tangible 
things  which  he  well  understood,  and  entered  those 


176  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

higher  fields  where  statistics  count  for  little,  and  the 
emotions  and  experiences  of  mankind  for  a  great 
deal,  he  was  at  a  disadvantage  because  no  deep  stu- 
dent of  humanity,  —  humanity  which  never  in  re- 
corded ages  has  been  able  to  live  by  bread  alone. 
"I  am  having  a  lonely  time,"  he  wrote  in  1909, 
"when  the  talk  turns  on  Roosevelt  or  Revealed 
Religion." 

In  friendly  badinage  he  was  unsurpassed,  and  he 
loved  a  joke  with  the  pure  enjoyment  of  a  school-boy. 
Many  of  his  letters  were  filled  with  raillery,  and  he 
carried  on  contests  in  doggerel  with  any  of  his  friends 
who  had  a  gift  that  way.  He  wrote  one  summer  from 
St.  Moritz  to  Effingham  Morris  in  Philadelphia, 
using  an  envelope  on  which,  hi  lieu  of  name,  he  had 
pasted  a  fairly  good  newspaper  portrait  of  his  friend. 
The  patient  post-office  officials,  accustomed  to  dis- 
play the  ingenuity  of  secret  service  men,  delivered 
this  letter  safely  and  promptly,  to  the  delight  of  the 
sender,  and  the  embarrassment  of  the  recipient. 

Perhaps  it  was  this  ineradicable  boyishness  which 
made  Dr.  White  delight  in  the  society  of  children. 
He  won  their  affections  easily,  and  he  never  tired  of 
their  companionship.  They  brightened  and  soothed 
the  tediousness  of  Nauheim.  When  he  went  to  At- 
lantic City  he  invariably  met  "a  nice  little  girl,"  or 
"two  stirring  little  boys,"  with  whom  he  spent  his 
days  on  the  beach.  Upon  every  ocean  trip  he  records 


FOUR  BUSY  YEARS  177 

his  intimacy  with  children.  He  was  much  pleased 
when  a  friend  on  the  Cedric  heard  one  passenger  say 
to  another:  "Dr.  White  of  Philadelphia  is  on  board." 
To  which  the  second  man  answered:  "Oh,  yes,  I 
know  him  by  sight.  He's  the  man  with  a  gray  mous- 
tache and  several  children."  He  wrote  to  Effingham 
Morris  from  the  Adriatic:  "There  are  some  dear  little 
children  on  board  —  five  of  them  —  with  whom  I  play 
all  day.  We  came  over  together  last  September,  and 
are  true  and  tried  friends.  Letty  tells  me  she  heard 
a  passenger  say:  'That  old  gentleman  is  certainly  de- 
voted to  his  children.*  I  think  she  put  in  the  'old.' ' 

He  was  as  garrulous  as  a  grandfather  in  repeating 
the  witticisms  of  his  friends'  offspring.  Dr.  Penrose's 
little  son  interested  him  especially,  and  he  had  always 
an  anecdote  to  tell  of  this  precocious  child.  One  story 
I  thought,  and  still  think,  remarkable,  as  illustrating 
the  unconscious  subtlety  of  the  childish  mind.  Dr. 
White,  going  one  morning  to  Dr.  Penrose's  house, 
found  this  eight-year-old  boy  playing  with  a  train  of 
cars  which  he  was  loading  with  bits  of  wood,  and  an 
occasional  lump  of  coal,  purloined  from  the  scuttle. 
"Hello,  Boies,"  he  said;  "where  are  you  running 
your  train  to?"  "To  Zanzibar,"  answered  the  child. 
"And  what's  your  load?"  "Witches,  and  ghosts,  and 
hobgoblins.  And  there  are  n't  any  witches,  and  there 
are  n't  any  ghosts,  and  there  are  n't  any  hobgoblins." 
"Why,  then,"  asked  the  amazed  visitor,  "are  you 


178  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

running  a  trainload  of  them  to  Zanzibar?"  "Be- 
cause," said  the  child,  "the  people  of  Zanzibar  don't 
know  there  are  n't  any." 

Of  rival  schools  of  medicine,  Dr.  White  was  al- 
ways profoundly  intolerant,  and  he  hated  proprietary 
drugs  with  a  just  and  righteous  hatred.  Once  in  a 
London  hotel  he  found  himself  seated  at  table  next 
to  the  thrice  celebrated  Munyon,  from  whom  he  fled 
as  from  the  pestilence.  "An  honest,  straightforward 
burglar  who  takes  his  chance  of  being  killed  or  jugged 
is  comparatively  respectable,"  was  his  indignant 
comment.  This  martial  attitude  inspired  him  to 
work  hard  in  the  spring  of  1909  for  the  new  Medical 
Examiners  Bill,  then  being  prepared  for  the  state 
legislature.  He  believed  it  to  be  a  wise  and  a  much 
needed  measure,  and  he  rejoiced  because  it  "in- 
volved a  row  with  osteopaths,  homoeopaths,  eclectics, 
and  all  the  other  quacks  in  town  and  state." 

The  friends  and  former  students  of  Dr.  White  had 
been  for  some  time  eager  to  present  his  portrait  to 
the  Medical  Department  of  the  University.  This 
year  they  subscribed  the  money,  and  asked  his  con- 
sent. He  in  turn  wrote  to  Sargent,  who  was  still 
struggling  to  escape  from  the  bondage  of  portraits, 
and  put  the  questions  bluntly.  Would  he  paint  the 
picture?  Would  he  paint  it  in  June?  Would  he  object 
too  keenly  to  the  scarlet  gown  of  Aberdeen? 

Sargent,  well  accustomed  to  his  friend's  humorous 


FOUR  BUSY  YEARS  179 

moods,  thought  this  letter  a  jest,  and  treated  it  as 
one.  It  took  a  second  missive  to  convince  him  that 
the  request  was  made  in  sober  earnest;  and  then,  like 
a  loyal  friend,  he  bowed  his  head  to  the  yoke.  True, 
the  image  of  his  sitter,  clad  in  dazzling  tints,  haunted 
his  sleepless  nights,  "invoking  with  a  savage  grin  the 
name  of  friendship  to  hurl  me  back  to  the  damned 
abyss  of  portraiture,  out  of  which  it  has  taken  me  two 
years  to  scramble."  True,  he  wrote  pitifully  that  he 
hoped  Dr.  White's  admiring  friends  did  not  want  a 
three-quarter  length.  "That  would  take  much  longer, 
and  looking  at  a  large  surface  of  scarlet  affects  me  as 
they  say  it  does  army  tailors,  who  have  to  retire  to 
the  vomitorium  every  three-quarters  of  an  hour. 
You  are  sure  to  know  all  about  the  close  connection 
between  the  optic  nerve,  the  colour  scarlet,  and  the 
epigastrium."  True,  he  cabled  in  an  access  of  despair: 
"Prefer  death  to  three-quarter  length."  Nevertheless, 
he  painted  the  portrait  (a  half-length),  painted  it  in 
the  Aberdeen  gown  of  scarlet  and  light  blue,  with  the 
University  of  Pennsylvania  hood,  and  consoled  him- 
self by  declaring  that  his  old  friend  looked  like  a 
"South  African  macaw,"  —  being  apparently  un- 
aware that  macaws  are  a  product  of  tropical  America. 
On  the  14th  of  June,  Sargent  wrote  to  Dr.  White, 
who  was  expected  to  land  on  the  20th:  "By  this  time 
I  suppose  you  are  on  the  bridge,  practising  a  becom- 
ing expression.  I  am  also  training  for  you  by  a  course 


180  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

of  drawing  from  the  antique.  If  you  get  here  on 
Sunday,  the  20th,  I  shall  await  you  on  Monday,  at 
eleven  o'clock.  Bring  your  war-paint  in  the  way  of 
gowns,  etc.  I  hope  Mrs.  White  will  come  with  you  to 
administer  anaesthetics,  and,  generally,  lend  a  helping 
hand." 

The  sittings  began  on  the  21st,  Sargent  swearing 
vigorously  that  this  would  be  his  last,  his  very  last 
portrait.  It  was  rumoured  that  he  had  already  re- 
fused a  hundred  and  fifty  commissions;  but  then  he 
was  always  refusing  something  or  somebody.  He  re- 
fused resolutely  to  make  speeches;  and,  as  he  never 
burdened  himself  with  book-plates  and  other  artless 
impedimenta,  he  escaped  the  demands  of  collectors. 
One  day  when  he  was  painting  his  friend,  he  refused 
to  dine  with  the  King  and  Queen  at  the  American 
Embassy.  "I'd  certainly  go  if  I  were  asked,"  com- 
ments Dr.  White  simply.  "He  is  more  indifferent  to 
such  things.  They  bore  him." 

The  ocean  voyage  had  browned  the  doctor  to  a 
rich  mahogany,  and  the  portrait  was  finished  before 
he  had  a  chance  to  pale  under  the  mild  London  skies. 
He  delighted  in  this  Malayan  tint,  and  explained 
indignantly  to  Henry  James  and  other  startled 
friends  that  he  was  often  much  darker,  —  which 
would  have  seemed  impossible.  Sargent  contented 
himself  with  expressing  a  hope  that  the  picture 
would  protect  him  from  future  applications.  "It 


FOUR  BUSY  YEARS  181 

will  suit  my  purpose  better  to  let  people  think  that 
this  is  my  present  style  than  to  make  a  plea  for  ex- 
tenuating circumstances."  That  he  knew  his  work 
to  be  good,  a  penetrating  likeness,  a  virile  and  dis- 
tinguished portrait,  is  proved  by  his  asking  Dr. 
White  to  lend  the  canvas  to  the  Buffalo  Exhibition. 
It  was  shipped  to  the  United  States  in  September, 
and  was  formally  presented  to  the  University  by  Dr. 
Stengel,  and  accepted  by  Dr.  Frazier,  on  the  22d  of 
February,  1910.  In  the  meantime  it  had  been  hung 
in  the  winter  exhibit  of  the  Academy  of  the  Fine 
Arts.  There  I  found  Dr.  Keen  earnestly  contemplat- 
ing it  on  the  night  of  the  Private  View.  "Don't  tell 
me  that  the  leopard  cannot  change  its  spots,"  he 
said,  "for  White  has  certainly  changed  his  skin." 

The  Engadine  programme  in  the  summer  of  1909 
was  materially  modified  by  the  fact  that  Dr.  and  Mrs. 
Martin,  and  Dr.  and  Mrs.  Clark,  joined  the  Whites 
at  St.  Moritz.  The  newcomers  proclaimed  themselves 
burning  with  zeal  for  a  walking  tour,  and  August  2d 
was  set  for  a  start.  It  snowed  all  morning  and  rained 
all  afternoon.  Dr.  Martin  lightly  proposed  a  train. 
Dr.  White  explained  that  travelling  by  train  was  not, 
and  never  could  be,  a  walking  tour.  Dr.  Martin  ad- 
mitted the  irrefutable  nature  of  this  argument,  and 
compromised,  as  did  the  Clarks,  by  driving.  They 
repeated  this  measure  whenever  they  were  tired,  or 
the  weather  was  unpropitious.  There  was  nothing 


182  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

unduly  strenuous  about  that  trip.  When  the  friends 
reached  Menaggio,  Dr.  Clark  took  one  swim  every 
day,  Dr.  Martin,  two,  Dr.  White,  three.  Dr.  Clark 
rowed  sparingly,  Dr.  Martin,  moderately,  Dr.  White, 
exhaustively.  "They  think,"  wrote  the  diarist,  "that 
I'm  a  fool  to  work  so  hard.  I  know  they're  fools  to 
miss  the  edge  that  plenty  of  exercise  always  puts  on 
outdoor  amusements.  We're  all  satisfied." 

Another  friend  of  still  more  tranquil  habits  came 
to  St.  Moritz  in  August.  This  was  Mr.  John  G. 
Johnson.  He  stated  tersely  that  he  was  not  there  to 
scramble  over  ice-pits,  but  meant  to  read  novels  and 
play  solitaire  every  day,  and  all  day,  until  he  left. 
Two  weeks  later  he  wrote  to  Dr.  White,  then  at 
Menaggio,  that  he  was  still  reading  novels  and  play- 
ing solitaire  in  great  comfort  and  contentment. 

On  his  return  to  Philadelphia  in  the  autumn,  Dr. 
WTiite  found  fresh  fields  of  labour  awaiting  him.  He 
had  already,  at  Mr.  Johnson's  solicitation,  accepted 
membership  in  the  Western  Saving  Fund  Society. 
Now  he  was  appointed  by  the  Board  of  Judges  a 
member  of  the  Fairmount  Park  Commission.  It  was 
an  appointment  which,  in  newspaper  language,  "gave 
wide  satisfaction"  to  all  save  the  appointee,  whom  it 
was  destined  later  on  to  enmesh  in  a  particularly 
lively  quarrel.  More  and  more,  as  the  years  went  by, 
it  became  the  habit  of  astute  boards  to  pile  work 
upon  the  shoulders  of  a  man  who  was  perfectly  sure 


FOUR  BUSY  YEARS  183 

to  do  it.  For  shirkers  and  slackers  he  had  a  profound 
aversion;  for  hedgers  and  temporizers  a  still  more 
profound  contempt.  A  tenacious  fidelity  to  old  cus- 
toms and  to  new  duties  characterized  him  through- 
out life.  He  served  steadfastly  on  the  Board  of  Stew- 
ards of  the  American  Rowing  Association.  Years  had 
passed  since  he  severed  his  connection  with  Blockley; 
but  he  seldom  failed  to  attend  the  "Old  Blockley" 
reunions  of  doctors  and  surgeons,  and  he  stood  ever 
ready  to  assist  in  needed  measures  of  reform.  A 
clause  in  that  profoundly  human  document,  his  will, 
bequeathed  $5000  to  the  syphilitic  ward,  the  interest 
of  which  was  to  be  given  every  year  to  some  poor 
patient  who  had  been  pronounced  sound  enough  to 
be  free,  and  who  was  decent  enough  to  try  and  re- 
build his  life,  if  help  were  given  him  to  bridge  over 
the  first  hard  months  of  convalescence. 

Dr.  White  had  not  found  it  easy  to  escape  from 
surgery  by  the  simple  surrender  of  his  practice.  Old 
patients  refused  to  be  surrendered,  and  new  ones  called 
imperatively  for  aid.  In  December,  1908,  Secretary 
Root  injured  his  knee,  and  begged  Dr.  White  to  come 
to  Washington  in  consultation,  —  a  favour  for  which 
he  expressed  then  and  later  the  liveliest  sense  of  obli- 
gation. John  G.  Johnson,  having  need  of  a  severe 
operation,  insisted  that  his  old  friend  should  operate, 
brushing  aside  the  latter's  reasonable  misgivings,  and 
declining  to  be  touched  by  any  other  hand  than  his. 


184  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

In  the  winter  of  1910,  Henry  James,  hugging  his 
solitude  at  Rye,  wrote  sombrely  to  his  friend:  "The 
days  are  short  and  dark,  the  rain  eternal,  the  mud 
infernal,  the  society  nil.  But,  with  the  intuition  of 
genius,  I  none  the  less  feel  the  weeks  and  the  months 
run  through  my  fingers  like  water." 

They  ran  swiftly,  but  they  bore  misfortune  on 
their  current.  Mr.  James  was,  after  all,  an  American, 
and  no  American  can  vegetate  with  safety.  He  knew 
he  ought  to  be  in  London.  He  admitted  that  Lon- 
don was  the  only  cure  for  his  ailments,  the  sovereign 
remedy  for  ageing  limbs  and  a  heavy  heart.  Yet  he 
stayed  perversely  at  Rye,  in  close  proximity  to  a 
Salvation  Army,  and  his  health  and  spirits  visibly 
declined.  Later,  the  lamentable  death  of  his  brother, 
Professor  William  James,  plunged  him  into  profound 
grief  and  melancholy.  "Every  departure,"  says  Mon- 
taigne, "breaks  a  set  of  sympathies."  There  were  so 
many  sets  of  sympathies  between  these  brothers  that 
the  years  were  too  short  to  mend  the  shattered  life 
of  the  survivor. 

The  spring  of  1910  brought  three  of  the  four 
friends  together  in  England,  —  England  visibly  sad- 
dened by  King  Edward's  death,  and  dimly  aware  of 
the  disastrous  nature  of  its  loss.  Sargent  was  in  Lon- 
don, rioting  in  his  escape  from  portrait  painting, 
exhibiting  a  "Corfu  Landscape,"  and  a  "Glacier 
Stream,"  at  the  Academy,  and  spending  happy 


FOUR  BUSY  YEARS  185 

nights  in  watching  Pavlova  and  Mordkin  dance. 
The  Abbeys  had  bought  a  beautiful  old  manor  house 
near  Winchester  (Elizabethan  in  the  main,  but  with 
a  wall  or  two  which  dated  from  the  time  of  Richard 
the  Second),  and  were  also  in  London,  deep  in  plans 
for  alterations,  furnishings,  etc.  The  artist  did  Dr. 
White  a  good  turn,  which  was  duly  appreciated. 
Hearing  that  his  friend's  silk  hat  had  been  left  in 
Philadelphia,  he  promptly  presented  him  with  one 
which  he  held  hi  just  abhorrence.  It  had  been  the 
property  of  Mr.  Cross  —  known  to  the  world  as 
George  Eliot's  husband  —  who  had  walked  off  from 
a  dinner  with  Abbey's  new  hat,  leaving  in  its  place 
one  of  his  own,  partly  worn,  and  decorated  with  a 
cigarette  hole  in  the  side.  When  they  next  met, 
Abbey  voiced  an  indignant  protest,  to  which  the 
successful  raider  replied  unconcernedly,  "Aw  really. 
Just  fahncy  now."  Abbey  bought  a  new  hat,  and 
handed  over  his  souvenir  to  Dr.  White,  who  wore  it 
once  or  twice  until  his  own  head-gear  arrived;  and 
then,  true  to  his  instinct  for  hoarding  everything 
that  had  played  the  least  part  hi  his  life,  boxed  it  up, 
and  carried  it  back  to  Philadelphia,  to  be  stowed 
away  in  some  capacious  closet  of  the  Rittenhouse 
Square  home. 

This  summer  the  Whites  actually  succeeded  in 
persuading  the  Abbeys  to  visit  them  at  St.  Moritz. 
Dr.  White  never  could  be  brought  to  understand 


186  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

why  his  friends  did  not  spend  their  holidays  in  the 
Engadine,  and  on  the  Italian  lakes,  as  he  did.  He 
represented  to  them  in  moving  terms  how  much 
they  missed,  and  how  completely  they  were  at  fault 
in  missing  it;  and  they  answered  with  ribald  and  un- 
seemly jests.  Sargent  wrote:  "Wild  omnibus  horses 
would  not  draw  me  from  this  domain  to  wallow  on 
your  Lascivious  Lakes."  Henry  James,  always  im- 
patient of  Switzerland,  and  of  the  "elevating  amuse- 
ments" it  afforded,  audaciously  proposed  that  his 
"passionate  friend"  should  come  to  Rye  instead. 
"If  you'll  let  me  tie  ropes  around  your  waist,  give 
you  a  pickaxe  to  carry,  and  stick  a  brandy  flask  into 
your  pocket,  you  will  be  able  to  walk  up  and  down 
this  backyard,  with  every  other  natural  inducement 
to  believe  you  are  on  the  Matterhorn." 

Abbey  alone  listened  to  the  voice  of  reason,  and 
presented  himself  at  St.  Moritz,  with  the  astonishing 
result  that,  instead  of  panting  up  mountain-sides,  for 
which  hardy  sport  nature  had  unfitted  him,  the  art- 
ist insisted  that  his  friend  should  follow  his  lead,  and 
learn  to  draw,  for  which  amiable  accomplishment  na- 
ture had,  with  equal  austerity,  unfitted  Dr.  White. 
A  sketch-book  was  selected  with  great  care,  and  Ab- 
bey sent  to  London  for  an  instructive  little  volume  on 
the  "Making  of  Pictures."  Thus  equipped,  the  friends 
sallied  forth  in  search  of  material  and  inspiration. 
The  pupil  made  amazing  progress,  only  nothing  he 


FOUR  BUSY  YEARS  187 

drew  was  recognizable,  or  of  the  right  size.  "If  I  try 
and  sketch  a  rowboat,"  he  wrote  from  Menaggio,  "it 
looks  like  an  ocean  liner,  or  a  floating  peanut." 

Running  through  this  summer's  diary,  and  in  some 
measure  through  all  the  diaries,  is  a  vein  of  raillery 
which  corresponded  with  family  jokes,  and  with  the 
give  and  take  of  family  banter.  What  Dr.  White  most 
enjoyed  was  to  deride  his  wife  and  sister-in-law  ar- 
rayed in  arms,  and  arms  of  exceeding  sharpness, 
against  him.  When  he  wrote  teasingly  of  his  wife,  it 
was  in  continuation  of  this  battle  of  wits,  hi  which  he 
was  alternately  conqueror  and  conquered.  His  one 
lasting  advantage  lay  in  the  fact  that  he  kept  a  diary, 
and  Mrs.  White  did  n't.  At  Menaggio  he  records  the 
arrival  of  home  papers  which  he  wanted  to  read,  but 
of  which  she  promptly  took  possession. 

"Letizia  in  Italian  means  joy  or  gladness.  My  little 
Joyness  read  the  recently  arrived  'Ledger'  to  me,  and 
I  noted  mentally  her  selections.  She  began  with  the 
death  of  Mrs.  Snowden;  then  commented  on  the 
death  of  Judge  Craig  Biddle;  then  tried  to  remind  me 
of  some  one  on  whom  I  had  once  operated,  who  was 
of  course  dead,  and  whose  sister  had  just  died;  then 
read  about  the  epidemic  of  infantile  paralysis  in 
Pennsylvania,  the  pest  of  potato  bugs  in  Chester,  and 
the  appearance  of  caterpillars  in  Philadelphia,  with 
side  remarks  about  caterpillars  on  the  farm,  and  a 
diagnosis  of  the  death  of  our  old  sow,  and  a  word  on 


188  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

the  need  of  a  new  pig-sty.  Then  she  skimmed  the 
death  list,  and  wondered  if  Miss  Kate  Biddle  had 
died.  Then  she  told  me  that  the  Athletics  had  just 
lost  a  game  or  two,  and  that  their  percentage  had 
gone  down.  Then  she  stopped  a  minute  to  comment 
upon  Kate's  inability  to  stand  American  heat.  Then 
she  settled  to  work  again  on  the  remainder  of  the 
death  list,  the  low  price  of  all  our  stocks,  and  a  couple 
of  railroad  and  automobile  accidents.  She  was  busy 
with  a  description  of  the  bodies  that  were  removed 
from  the  last  wreck  when  we  arrived  at  the  spiaggia. 
I  felt  quite  cheered  up.'* 

In  the  autumn  of  this  year,  Dr.  White  took  a  step 
he  had  been  for  some  time  contemplating,  and  sev- 
ered the  last  tie  which  bound  him  to  the  profession 
he  had  served  for  forty  years.  He  resigned  the  John 
Rhea  Barton  Professorship  of  Surgery  at  the  Univer- 
sity. The  resignation  of  his  chair  followed  inevitably 
the  resignation  of  his  surgical  practice  four  years  ear- 
lier. He  was  only  sixty,  and  full  of  potential  force.  It 
seemed  too  soon  to  step  outside  the  ranks  in  which 
he  had  risen  to  supreme  command.  Had  he  foreseen 
what  four  more  years  would  bring  upon  the  world,  he 
would  have  stood  by  his  guns,  and  bided  his  chance 
to  give  his  skill  and  experience  to  the  great  cause  of 
justice  and  civilization. 

There  was  the  usual  melancholy  round  of  last 
words,  and  presentations,  and  regrets.  Dr.  Edward 


FOUR  BUSY  YEARS  189 

Martin  succeeded  him  as  John  Rhea  Barton  Profes- 
sor. The  D.  Hayes  Agnew  Surgical  Society  held  a 
meeting  at  Dr.  Martin's  house,  and  presented  Dr. 
White  with  a  loving  cup.  The  students  of  the  third 
and  fourth  year  medical  classes  gave  him  a  farewell 
reception  in  the  amphitheatre  of  Logan  Hall,  pre- 
sented him  with  a  very  handsome  hall-clock,  and 
shouted  themselves  hoarse  in  his  honour.  He  had  al- 
ways been  popular  with  his  classes,  and  they  had 
recognized  the  keen  and  generous  character  of  his  re- 
gard. Years  had  passed  since  Dr.  William  Pepper, 
whose  name  should  be  forever  honoured  by  the  city 
which  he  served,  had  rescued  the  University  of  Penn- 
sylvania from  the  state  of  coma  into  which  it  had 
fallen,  and  had  breathed  new  life  into  its  shrunken 
veins.  In  this  work  of  revivification  Dr.  White  had 
bravely  helped.  Less  philosophical  and  less  imper- 
sonal than  Dr.  Pepper,  less  patient  under  injury,  and 
less  lenient  to  a  blundering  world,  he  was  moved  to 
wrath  by  provocations  over  which  the  older  physi- 
cian would  have  shrugged  tolerant  shoulders.  But  he 
could  no  more  have  been  alienated  from  the  college 
by  such  provocations  than  he  could  have  been  alien- 
ated from  the  United  States  by  an  Administration, 
or  from  Philadelphia  by  its  politicians,  or  by  the 
"social  inbreeding"  he  astutely  recognized  and  de- 
plored. "The  people  think  they  are  moving,  but  they 
are  like  sticks  in  an  eddy."  His  country  was  his  coun- 


190  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

try,  his  birthplace  was  his  birthplace,  his  Alma  Mater 
was  his  Alma  Mater,  and  he  stood  ready  to  serve  all 
three  while  breath  was  left  in  his  body.  The  notion  — 
borrowed  from  Germany  —  that  criticism  spells  dis- 
loyalty was  less  common  then  than  now. 

At  the  students'  reception,  Dr.  White  made  a  brief 
and  highly  characteristic  speech.  It  had  been  his  rare 
good  fortune  to  inspire  confidence  in  those  whom  he 
taught.  His  enthusiasms  were  apt  to  be  contagious. 
"  There  was  no  resisting  the  exhilaration  of  his  spirit, 
or  the  impetus  of  his  example,"  said  a  keen  observer. 
Now  that  he  was  speaking  to  these  students  for  the 
last  time,  he  admitted  that  his  greatest  pleasure  and 
pride  lay  in  the  fact  that,  during  the  thirty  years  in 
which  he  had  lectured,  only  one  man  had  —  to  his 
knowledge  —  gone  to  sleep  hi  class.  "I  did  not  know 
who  this  man  was,"  he  said,  "I  should  not  know  him 
if  I  saw  him  now  awake.  But  I  shall  never  forget  the 
shock  of  that  sleeping  face." 

There  spoke  the  spirit  of  the  man.  I  recall,  by  way 
of  contrast,  Dr.  Horace  Howard  Furness  saying  to 
me  that  the  person  whom  he  most  liked  to  see  at  his 
Shaksperian  readings  (readings  which  stirred  the 
heart  and  set  the  blood  a-tingling)  was  a  mutual  ac- 
quaintance who  seemed  to  me  strangely  unworthy 
of  this  preference.  "Yes,"  he  added,  in  answer  to  my 
unspoken  question,  "I'd  much  sooner  see  her  than 
you,  because  she  sleeps  two  thirds  of  the  time,  and  I 


FOUR  BUSY  YEARS  191 

have  the  satisfaction  of  knowing  that  there  is  at  least 
one  person  in  the  audience  who  is  thoroughly  enjoy- 
ing herself." 

There  was  none  of  this  altruism  about  Dr.  White. 
He  liked  his  students  to  attend  to  his  lectures,  not 
only  because  there  were  many  things  which  it  be- 
hooved them  to  know,  but  because  he  was  speaking 
to  them.  It  takes  a  good  deal  to  galvanize  college 
classes  into  life,  and  to  rivet  their  attention.  This  he 
was  able  to  do.  He  was  not  a  tranquillizing  speaker 
upon  any  subject.  You  liked,  or  you  did  not  like, 
what  he  had  to  say;  but  in  either  case  you  stayed 
awake  and  listened. 


CHAPTER  X 

FREEDOM 

rriHERE  is  a  story  of  Kipling's  about  a  Scotch 
M.  sea-going  engineer  who  came  into  a  fortune,  for- 
sook his  engine-room,  and  spent  his  long-hoped-for 
freedom  in  doing  for  love  the  work  he  had  formerly 
done  for  pay.  Dr.  White  was  now  a  free  man.  He,  too, 
had  abandoned  his  life's  work.  But  there  remained 
the  work  of  other  people,  and  those  odds  and  ends 
of  employment  which  consume  leisure,  and  are  war- 
ranted to  keep  our  interests  and  irritability  from  de- 
cay. For  one  thing,  he  was  elected  a  member  of  the 
Board  of  Trustees  of  the  University  of  Pennsylvania. 
It  was  a  hotly  contested  election,  for  this,  being  a 
year  of  changes,  was  also  a  year  of  disputation.  Few 
boards  welcome  a  dynamic  force  into  their  slumber- 
ous bosoms.  They  like  a  man  who  can  be  put  on  the 
difficult  jobs;  but  the  worst  of  such  a  member  is  that 
he  will  seldom  let  sleeping  dogs  lie,  and  there  is  a 
deal  of  disturbance  attendant  upon  their  awakening. 
When  Dr.  White  held  the  chair  of  surgery,  he  had  al- 
ways striven  to  get  the  men  he  wanted  under  him. 
Now  that  he  was  a  trustee,  he  was  as  full  of  fight  as 
ever.  "Uncertainty  about  anything  close  to  my 
plans  and  wishes  always  was  killing  to  me,"  is  his 


FREEDOM  193 

naive  admission.  "I  know  you  for  the  ruthless  Ter- 
rorist you  are,"  is  Robins's  more  forceful  fashion  of 
describing  the  situation. 

Provost  Harrison  resigned  his  position  after  six- 
teen years  of  faithful  and  strenuous  service,  and  Vice- 
President  Edgar  Fahs  Smith  succeeded  him.  On  the 
22d  of  February  the  University  conferred  the  degree 
of  LL.D.  on  our  good  friend,  Count  von  Bernstorff, 
who  was  received  with  tumultuous  applause.  The 
prayer  delivered  by  the  Reverend  Dr.  William  Henry 
Roberts,  Clerk  of  the  Presbyterian  General  Assem- 
bly, held  special  petitions  for  the  Emperor  of  Ger- 
many and  the  King  of  England.  Count  von  Bern- 
storff made  a  most  interesting  speech  in  praise  of  all 
things  German,  and  expounded  to  us  the  "Science  of 
Social  Government,"  about  which  we  were  destined 
to  be  later  on  more  fully  and  freely  enlightened. 

That  Dr.  White's  labours  as  a  trustee  were  ulti- 
mately crowned  with  success,  and  that  his  highest 
hopes  were  realized,  is  shown  by  a  letter  sent  early  in 
June  to  announce  the  glad  tidings  to  Thomas  Rob- 
ins. "As  to  the  University,  everything  has  gone  my 
way,"  he  writes  triumphantly.  "I  haven't  lost  a 
trick  yet.  The  Governor  has  signed  our  bill  for  $995,- 
000,  which  is  $515,000  more  than  we  ever  before  suc- 
ceeded in  getting  from  the  State.  It  makes  us  easy 
for  two  years,  if  there  is  n't  another  dollar  begged 
or  given.  We've  raised  many  salaries,  adding  about 


194  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

$75,000  to  the  salary  list,  and  diffusing  an  atmos- 
phere of  content  and  prosperity.  Several  of  our  best 
men,  who  were  on  the  point  of  going  elsewhere,  are 
now  fixed;  and  others  will  give  cheerful  instead  of 
reluctant  work." 

One  break  for  liberty  Dr.  White  made  in  the  win- 
ter of  1911.  He  and  Mrs.  White  went  to  Bermuda, 
being  urged  thereto  by  doctors  and  friends.  The  trip 
was  like  all  similar  trips,  —  a  replacing  of  ordinary  by 
extraordinary  exertions,  and  of  vital  interests  by  arti- 
ficial ones.  Dr.  White  bicycled  all  day,  except  when 
he  was  swimming.  He  had  the  usual  assortment  of 
accidents,  and  reports  them  with  the  usual  acrimony. 
"I  picked  up  on  the  water's  edge  a  beautiful  blue, 
soft,  translucent  creature,  to  show  it  to  Letty,"  he 
writes  in  the  diary.  "I'm  not  sure  whether  it  was  a 
jelly  fish  or  a  nautilus.  Anyhow  it  stung  my  finger, 
which  is  now  red,  swollen  and  aching.  I  think  I  can 
be  stung  by  more  kinds  of  animals  than  any  one  else 
on  this  planet.  If  an  apple-dumpling  were  floating  on 
the  sea,  and  I  picked  it  up,  it  would  sting  —  if  it 
did  n't  bite  me." 

Three  days  later  he  reports  that  he  has  a  cold,  from 
getting  alternately  over-heated  and  chilled;  and  also 
a  sprained  ankle.  "Moreover,  I  twisted  my  back  a 
little  in  diving,  and  have  a  sore  spot  over  the  lumbar 
spine.  My  stung  finger  still  aches,  and  my  shoulder 
and  arm  are  annoying  me.  My  bicycle  saddle  came 


FREEDOM  195 

off  (from  the  breaking  of  a  bolt),  and  I  bruised  my- 
self on  the  bare  wires.  I  broke  a  finger-nail  against 
the  edge  of  a  table  I  was  moving,  and  that  finger  is 
sore.  The  salt  water  (from  diving)  has  made  me  deaf 
in  one  ear.  Otherwise  I  am  in  splendid  condition." 

Thus  fortified  he  returned  to  Philadelphia,  to  be 
met  by  evil  tidings.  Abbey  was  ill.  He  had  been  suf- 
fering increasingly  for  months,  but  continued  to  la- 
bour upon  the  Harrisburg  decorations;  "putting  work 
of  the  very  first  and  finest  order  into  those  bottom- 
less (or  topless)  spaces,"  wrote  Henry  James,  and 
striving  vainly  to  outspeed  the  stealthy  step  of  Death. 
As  the  spring  deepened,  his  malady  laid  a  stronger 
hand  upon  him;  and,  early  in  June,  Osier  and  Mrs. 
Abbey  cabled  to  Dr.  White,  begging  him  to  come  to 
London  at  once,  and  be  present  at  an  "exploratory" 
operation  upon  his  friend. 

The  doctor  snatched  the  first  sailing  he  could  get, 
stowing  himself  away  in  a  lower  cabin  on  the  Mau- 
retania,  and  leaving  Mrs.  White  to  follow  with  her 
sister  and  her  brother-in-law  in  a  fortnight.  He  ar- 
rived in  London  to  find  it  in  the  throes  of  the  Coro- 
nation, and  Mrs.  Abbey  urged  him  to  occupy  one 
of  their  seats  in  front  of  the  Reform  Club.  Heavy- 
hearted,  and  out  of  tune  with  the  gaudy  pageant, 
he  shuffled  through  the  crowded,  scaffolded  streets. 
"The  Londoner's  one  idea  of  decorating  his  city," 
said  Whistler,  "  is  to  cover  it  up  and  sit  on  it."  The 


196  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

figures  of  burning  interest  to  him  were  Lord  Roberts 
and  Lord  Kitchener.  The  spectacle  he  enjoyed  was 
the  marching  of  the  splendid  British  and  Colonial 
regiments.  Had  he  been  gifted  with  second-sight,  he 
would  have  beheld  these  men  swathed  hi  their  wind- 
ing sheets.  Three  years  more,  and  their  graves  yawned 
for  them.  Germany's  plans  were  maturing;  her  stra- 
tegic railways  were  built;  her  arms  and  ammunition 
were  stored;  she  was  waiting  her  hour  to  strike.  And 
England  was  self-blinded.  Lord  Roberts  had  given  her 
warning.  In  the  plainest  words  he  could  use,  he  had 
foretold  the  invasion  of  the  Huns;  and  he  had  received 
the  reward  meted  out  to  prophets,  —  discredit  and  dis- 
trust. Liberal  statesmen  had  decried  his  suspicions  of 
a  "friendly  power,"  and  the  Liberal  press  had  feelingly 
rebuked  "the  crude  lusts  and  fears  that  haunt  the  sol- 
dier's brain." 

On  the  25th  of  June  the  exploratory  operation  was 
performed  by  an  English  surgeon,  Mr.  Moynihan,  — 
Dr.  Osier  and  Dr.  White  being  present.  It  revealed  a 
situation  so  hopeless  that  there  was  nothing  to  be 
done  but  tell  the  truth  to  Mrs.  Abbey  (a  harsh  duty 
which  devolved  upon  Dr.  White),  and  make  the  sick 
man  as  comfortable  as  possible  for  the  remaining 
months  of  his  life.  When  the  old  friends  parted,  one 
feared  and  the  other  knew  they  would  never  meet 
again.  Sargent,  with  superb  generosity,  gave  up  his 
summer's  plans,  and  returned  to  England  to  superin- 


FREEDOM  197 

tend  the  completion  of  several  of  the  Harrisburg  pic- 
tures which  were  so  nearly  finished  that  assistants 
could  deal  with  them;  and  also  to  arrange  for  an 
exhibition  of  the  artist's  work  at  Shepherd's  Bush. 
Abbey  died  on  the  1st  of  August,  and  Henry  James 
wrote  to  Dr.  White,  lamenting  his  loss,  but  adding, 
"He  had  a  pretty  big  and  glorious  life."  It  is  a  com- 
ment which  recalls  Mr.  BrownelPs  summing  up  of 
the  novelist's  own  career:  "If  any  life  can  be  called 
happy  before  it  is  closed,  that  of  Mr.  Henry  James 
may  certainly  be  so  called."  This  was  written  in  1909. 
There  were  still  five  years  of  calm. 

The  remainder  of  Dr.  White's  summer  was  spent, 
without  keen  enjoyment,  in  Switzerland,  and  on  the 
Italian  lakes.  No  sooner  had  he  returned  to  Philadel- 
phia in  the  autumn  than  he  began  his  memorable 
contest  for  the  abolishment  of  motor  races  in  Fair- 
mount  Park.  As  a  member  of  the  Park  Commission, 
he  offered  on  October  12th  the  following  resolution: 
"Resolved,  that  in  the  opinion  of  the  Fairmount 
Park  Commission  it  is  unadvisable  to  continue  the 
automobile  races  in  the  Park,  and  that,  to  avoid  dis- 
appointment and  misunderstanding,  this  opinion  be 
transmitted  to  the  persons  heretofore  chiefly  con- 
cerned, and  be  made  public." 

It  was  a  bold  stand,  determinedly  upheld.  The 
races  were  popular  with  sporting  motorists;  with  the 
public,  which  gathered  in  crowds  at  the  most  danger- 


198  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

ous  curves  on  the  track,  in  the  hope  of  seeing  a  smash; 
and  with  that  large  body  of  citizens  whose  plea  for  all 
happenings,  from  a  presidential  nomination  to  a  cir- 
cus, is  that  it  brings  trade  to  the  town.  Grave  pro- 
tests against  "reactionary  Philadelphia"  were  heard 
from  every  side,  and  scornful  critics  asked  mockingly, 
"  Was  this  White  the  athlete,  the  lifelong  champion  of 
all  dangerous  sports,  who  now  proffered  the  ignoble 
plea  of  'safety  first'?" 

To  these  assaults  Dr.  White  presented  an  un- 
broken front.  He  had  always  taken  a  utilitarian  view 
of  motors,  as  vehicles  for  transportation;  and  he 
pointed  out  that,  while  most  sports  worth  consider- 
ing hold  an  element  of  danger,  this  danger  should  be 
incurred  by,  and  confined  to,  the  sportsman,  —  not 
shared  by  spectators.  There  had  been  accidents  at 
Syracuse  and  at  St.  Louis  which  had  resulted  in  se- 
vere injuries  to  lookers-on,  as  well  as  to  the  racing 
motorists.  This  he  held  to  be  unsportsmanlike  and 
uncivilized. 

The  Park  Commissioners  were  equally  reluctant  to 
pass  the  resolution,  or  to  reject  it.  They  wanted  natu- 
rally to  be  let  alone,  and  spared  such  burning  ques- 
tions. They  tried  postponement,  hoping  it  would  die 
a  natural  death,  but  they  reckoned  without  Dr. 
White's  sustaining  power.  He  had  kept  too  many  pa- 
tients alive,  to  let  a  resolution  die.  They  tried  refer- 
ring it  to  the  sub-committee  on  Police  and  Superin- 


FREEDOM  199 

tendence;  and  that  acute  body  sent  it  back  to  them 
without  action  or  comment.  They  tried  to  show  they 
lacked  jurisdiction,  and  the  doctor  promptly  pro- 
cured the  legal  opinion  of  Mr.  George  Wharton  Pep- 
per, which  was  to  the  effect  that  the  authority  to  per- 
mit or  forbid  the  races  within  the  Park  confines  lay 
with  the  Park  Commission.  On  December  13th,  the 
postponed  resolution  was  brought  up  for  considera- 
tion. Dr.  White  again  spoke  briefly  in  its  defence: 

"There  is  no  form  of  physical  competition  or  stren- 
uous sport,"  he  said,  "which  is  wholly  devoid  of  dan- 
ger to  the  participant;  and  sometimes,  as  in  mountain 
climbing,  or  in  the  pursuit  of  man-eating  game,  the 
element  of  danger  is  a  justifiable  stimulus.  But  the 
moment  the  peril  is  excessive,  or  extends  to  lookers- 
on,  or,  worse  still,  grows  to  be  the  chief  element  of 
interest,  the  usefulness  of  the  sport  is  gone,  and  it 
becomes  harmful  and  demoralizing. 

"I  must  frankly  admit  that  I  have  attended  and 
enjoyed  these  motor  races  in  the  past,  and  I  have  a 
keen  admiration  for  the  dexterity  and  fearlessness  of 
the  drivers.  When  I  realized,  however,  my  own  re- 
sponsibility in  the  matter,  my  pleasure  was  marred, 
because  spectators,  who  were  encouraged  by  this 
Commission,  of  which  I  am  a  member,  to  be  present, 
might  be  instantly  killed  in  one  of  the  races,  and  be- 
cause no  conceivable  precaution  could  eliminate  this 
possibility." 


200  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

He  won  out.  On  May  8,  1912,  the  Commission 
passed  the  Resolution  with  only  one  dissentient  vote. 
Much  indignation  was  expressed  by  motorists.  Some 
regret  was  felt  by  sight-seers.  There  was  vague  talk 
of  "legal  action."  Then  the  press  dropped  the  matter, 
the  public  forgot  it,  and  the  world  moved  uncon- 
cernedly on. 

On  the  30th  of  March,  a  medallion  in  commemo- 
ration of  Dr.  Crawford  Williamson  Long,  of  the  class 
of  '39,  was  unveiled  in  the  University  of  Pennsylvania. 
It  was  the  work  of  Dr.  Tait  McKenzie.  Dr.  Long,  it 
was  claimed,  was  the  first  practitioner  who,  seventy 
years  before,  had  used  ether  as  an  anaesthetic  in  sur- 
gery. Dr.  White  made  the  address  at  the  unveiling, 
and  dwelt  long  and  lovingly  on  the  hard  fortune 
which  always  attends  the  innovator.  He  told  with 
relish  the  experiences  of  that  stout-hearted  Scotch 
surgeon,  Sir  James  Simpson,  who  got  himself  into 
a  world  of  trouble  by  using  chloroform  in  cases  of 
childbirth.  He  quoted  the  letter  of  an  Edinburgh 
minister,  who  censured  Simpson  for  employing  a  drug 
which  was  but  "a  decoy  of  Satan,  apparently  offering 
itself  to  bless  women;  but,  in  the  end,  destined  to 
harm  society,  and  rob  God  of  the  deep  earnest  cries 
which  arise  in  time  of  trouble  for  help." 

The  sins  of  the  pulpit  were  balm  to  Dr.  White's 
soul;  but  in  this  instance  the  laity  was  as  deeply 
impressed  by  the  immorality  of  chloroform  as  was 


FREEDOM  201 

the  dourest  cleric  in  Scotland.  An  Edinburgh  mob 
went  so  far  as  to  smash  Dr.  Simpson's  windows,  by 
way  of  signifying  its  disapproval  of  his  interference 
with  what  they  piously  designated  as  "the  curse  of 
Eve."  A  male  mob  evidently.  Men  have  always  mani- 
fested a  broad  tolerance  for  this  particular  curse.  It 
is  about  the  only  ruling  of  Providence  which  has  their 
full  and  free  concurrence. 

The  presidential  nominations  were  now  darken- 
ing the  horizon,  and  Dr.  White's  hopes  for  his  beloved 
Roosevelt  ran  higher  than  did  the  hopes  of  more 
astute  adherents.  On  the  12th  of  April  the  Colonel 
addressed  two  Philadelphia  meetings,  and  was  re- 
ceived with  that  tumultuous  enthusiasm  which  is  as 
a  fire  of  straw.  No  man  understood  this  better  than 
he;  and  his  suggestion  that  his  audience  should 
not  "take  it  all  out  in  shouting,"  betrayed  his  wide 
knowledge  of  humanity.  Owen  Wister  presented  him 
to  the  five  thousand  men  and  women  packed  into 
the  Metropolitan  Opera  House;  while  to  the  fifteen 
thousand  men  and  women  on  Broad  Street  he  pre- 
sented himself  in  the  homely  fashion  so  dear  to  the 
heart  of  democracy.  The  nomination  of  Wilson  failed 
to  shake  Dr.  White's  confidence.  He  wrote  to  Tom 
Robins  that  there  was  some  satisfaction  in  it,  inas- 
much as  it  meant  the  defeat  of  the  forces  that  had 
betrayed  their  trust  in  Chicago.  "The  machine  pol- 


£02  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

iticians  cannot  hold  the  organization  together.  I  con- 
sider Taft  is  as  well  out  of  it  as  if  he  were  dead." 

What  wounded  his  spirit  past  healing  was  the  con- 
tumacy of  friends.  Some  there  were  who,  like  Robins 
and  Sargent,  gave  Roosevelt  an  adherence  as  loyal 
as  his  own.  Henry  James,  whom  he  rashly  attempted 
to  convert,  had  an  invincible  distaste  for  all  presi- 
dential nominees.  Effingham  Morris,  for  whom  his 
affection  was  strong,  constant,  and  curiously  out- 
spoken, was  the  associate  whom  he  most  wanted  to 
see  the  light,  and  who  dwelt  permanently  in  dark- 
ness. The  friends  would  argue  until  they  quarreled, 
and  Dr.  White  hated  to  quarrel  with  the  few  men 
whom  he  loved,  as  much  as  he  liked  to  quarrel  with 
the  many  men  to  whom  he  was  indifferent.  There  is 
something  profoundly  wistful  in  the  way  he  pleads 
with  Mr.  Morris  during  the  heat  of  the  presidential 
campaign:  "If  I  could  only  have  you  and  one  or 
two  others  —  but  especially  you  —  singing  'Onward 
Christian  Soldiers!'  by  my  side,  on  the  same  plat- 
form —  both  political  and  wooden  —  with  the  Colo- 
nel, my  cup  would  overflow." 

It  is  strange  how  deep  his  feelings  ran,  how  irre- 
sistibly the  tide  of  a  few  strong  emotions  swept  him 
through  life.  When,  instead  of  mounting  the  Pro- 
gressive platform,  Mr.  Morris  sent  him  some  ribald 
rhymes  on  his  great  leader,  he  comments  more  in 
sorrow  than  in  anger:  "It's  funny,  of  course.  But 


FREEDOM  203 

that  it  should  represent  the  serious  view  of  men 
whose  intelligence  I  had  until  recently  considered  as 
far  above  the  average  is  a  continual  surprise." 

In  truth  he  could  no  more  tolerate  a  jest  at  the 
expense  of  Roosevelt  than  he  could  tolerate  a  jest  at 
the  expense  of  his  profession.  The  Colonel  himself 
often  enjoyed  such  thrusts  hugely.  I  have  heard  him 
roar  with  laughter  over  "  Dooley's  "  amended  title  for 
his  volume  on  "The  Rough  Riders."  "If  I  was  him, 
I'd  call  th'  book  'Alone  in  Cubia.'"  But  though  Dr. 
White  admired  this  hardy  sense  of  humour,  this  free- 
dom from  the  peevish  vanity  which  cannot  forgive  a 
personal  affront,  he  would  not,  even  on  this  occasion, 
join  in  the  laugh.  His  loyalty  was  too  staunch,  his 
allegiance  too  undivided. 

The  summer  found  him  still  full  of  hope.  He  wrote 
in  July  to  Mr.  Edward  Van  Valkenburg,  propos- 
ing three  planks  for  the  platform.  First:  A  constitu- 
tional amendment  giving  the  President  power  to  veto 
items  in  appropriation  bills.  Second:  A  proviso  that 
at  least  one  member  of  the  Cabinet  shall  have  the  right 
ex  officio  to  participate  in  the  debates  of  the  House 
and  Senate.  Third:  The  establishment  of  a  Federal 
Bureau  of  Health.  "The  first  would  stop  the  iniqui- 
tous business  of  adding  riders.  The  second  would  put 
definite  clearness  into  much  legislation.  The  third 
would  contribute  to  the  safety,  and  therefore  to  the 
prosperity  and  happiness,  of  the  whole  nation." 


304  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

All  of  which  is  true,  provided  you  are  sure  of  your 
president,  sure  of  your  cabinet,  and  sure  of  your 
bureau.  Of  course  no  one  is  ever  sure  of  Congress. 
But  that  is  an  old  story. 

In  October,  Colonel  Roosevelt's  candidacy  came 
near  being  closed  by  an  assassin's  hand.  The  bullet, 
deflected  by  a  steel  spectacle  case,  lodged  between 
the  third  and  fourth  ribs,  and  stayed  there.  When 
the  patient  was  strong  enough  to  be  taken  home  (he 
was  fired  at  in  Milwaukee),  Dr.  White  accompanied 
him  to  New  York;  and  joy  that  life  was  spared  went 
far  to  solacing  his  faithful  heart  in  the  dark  Novem- 
ber days.  After  the  battle  was  over  and  lost,  Roose- 
velt, who  had  foreseen  no  other  issue,  wrote  a  few 
words  of  comfort  to  his  less  prescient  follower: 

"Looking  back,  I  think  I  can  say  that  we  won 
more  than  we  had  a  right  to  expect.  My  dear  fellow, 
I  very  earnestly  hope  that  we  shall  be  able  to  develop 
some  other  leader  who  can  do  better  than  I  have 
done  in  the  fight  for  social  and  industrial  justice, 
and  that  I  shall  never  again  be  a  candidate  for  the 
Presidency." 

The  summer  of  1912  was  spent  in  the  fashion  of 
other  summers,  —  a  little  of  it  in  London,  a  great 
deal  of  it  in  the  Engadine.  Dr.  Agnew  used  to  say 
that  at  seventy  a  man  should  not  break  even  a  bad 
habit.  Dr.  White  was  only  sixty -two;  but  his  holiday 
habits  were  set.  Now  and  then  he  admitted  to  Robins 


FREEDOM  205 

that  flower-shows  and  German  princelings  palled  on 
his  jaded  fancy;  but  there  was  always  an  avenue  of 
escape.  When  hard  pressed  socially,  he  and  Mrs.  White 
retreated  to  their  mountain  fastnesses,  and  were  safe. 

This  season  St.  Moritz  gave  him  little  rest,  be- 
cause a  young  American,  a  Harvard  student,  lay 
desperately  ill  in  the  hospital,  and  Dr.  Bernhard 
implored  his  aid  in  a  difficult  and  dangerous  oper- 
ation. It  was  not  the  first  time  such  help  had  been 
asked  and  given;  but  never  before  had  he  been  so 
deeply  interested,  so  gravely  anxious.  It  was  the  old 
story  of  fighting  with  death,  and,  while  that  duel 
was  on,  Dr.  White  knew  no  respite  from  concern.  He 
would  leave  the  hospital  late  at  night,  and  be  in  it 
again  by  seven  in  the  morning.  He  kept  a  minute 
record  of  the  case.  "I  am  afraid  that  boy  will  slip 
through  our  hands  after  all,"  is  his  frequent  and  de- 
spairing report.  He  helped  to  dress  the  wound  twice 
a  day.  "I  could  give  them  all  lessons  in  surgical 
dressing  to  their  advantage.  They  lack  delicacy  of 
touch  and  attention  to  detail.  But,  of  course,  I've 
seen  and  dressed  a  hundred  cases  where  any  doctor 
here  has  seen  and  dressed  one." 

When  at  last  the  patient  was  pronounced  out  of 
danger,  and  the  Whites  fled  to  Menaggio,  it  was  only 
to  be  pursued  by  a  telegram,  urging  their  immediate 
return.  Fresh  complications  had  arisen,  and  there  was 
fresh  need  for  help.  "I've  agreed  to  go,  d it!" 


206  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

groaned  the  doctor,  and  go  he  did.  The  poor  lad, 
who  clung  so  desperately  to  life,  greeted  him  with 
joy.  He  was  cheerful  and  full  of  jokes.  "Joking  won't 
stop  that  fever,"  is  the  diary's  grim  comment;  but 
perhaps  it  helped.  Once  more  he  was  pulled  out  of 
the  abyss,  and  his  feet  set  upon  the  paths  of  earth. 
"  If  I  ever  get  through  with  this  case,  I  shall  try  to 
keep  out  of  others,"  wrote  Dr.  White  soberly,  and 
Mrs.  White  added  "Amen." 

The  only  conflicting  interest  that  St.  Moritz  of- 
fered was  the  arrival  in  August  of  Prince  Adalbert, 
the  Kaiser's  third  son.  He  was  a  friend  of  the  Orth- 
weins,  and  took  enough  of  a  fancy  to  Dr.  White  to 
confide  to  him  many  of  his  opinions,  noticeably  his 
liking  for  Americans,  and  his  detestation  of  Jews. 
Also  —  but  this  was  accidental  —  his  views  upon  a 
more  abstruse  subject.  Meeting  the  doctor  one  morn- 
ing hi  the  corridor  of  the  Kulm,  he  showed  him  an 
X-ray  photograph  of  a  skull,  saying,  "That's  good 
of  a  monkey,  is  n't  it?" 

Dr.  White  looked  at  the  paper,  and  then  at  the 
young  man.  "Many  human  skulls  are  exactly  like 
that,"  he  answered. 

The  Prince  laughed.  "As  it  chances,  it's  mine," 
he  said. 

Again  the  doctor  glanced  at  the  royal  conforma- 
tion, and  observed  cheerfully,  "The  resemblance  to 
a  monkey  takes  us  back  to  our  common  ancestors." 


FREEDOM  207 

"Not  to  my  ancestors,"  said  the  Prince  quickly. 

"I  was  not  alluding  to  the  Hohenzollerns,"  ex- 
plained Dr.  White;  "but  to  the  common  ancestors 
of  the  human  race,  millions  of  years  before  there 
were  any  class  distinctions." 

"I  don't  believe  in  that  kind  of  thing,"  said  the 
Prince. 

"But  surely,"  protested  Dr.  White,  "you  believe 
in  evolution.  All  your  scientific  men  believe  in  it,  as 
do  scientific  men  the  world  over." 

"Well,  I  don't,"  said  the  Prince,  and  the  subject 
was  dropped. 

No  sooner  had  the  travellers  returned  to  Phila- 
delphia in  October  than  they  began  to  plan  their 
long  meditated  trip  around  the  world.  The  time 
seemed  ripe  for  its  accomplishment.  Germany,  with 
sinister  patience,  bided  her  hour,  and  the  nations 
which  she  so  easily  hoodwinked  saw  the  years  before 
them  mellow  with  peace,  and  brimming  with  pleasur- 
able activities.  All  of  the  doctor's  letters  in  the  winter 
of  1913  are  full  of  allusions  to  this  cherished  project, 
and  all  of  his  friends'  letters  to  him  are  full  of  that 
qualified  assent  which  is  as  far  as  friendship  lends 
itself  to  enthusiasm.  "I  can  only  gape,  and  admire, 
and  oh,  so  detachedly,  applaud,"  is  Henry  James's 
method  of  expressing  this  familiar  and  discomfiting 
attitude. 

Dr.  White  really  stood  in  need  of  a  little  moral 


208  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

support,  because,  though  he  wanted  to  go,  he  hated 
to  leave.  There  was  nothing  which  imperatively  de- 
manded his  presence,  but  there  were  many  things 
which  would  suffer  from  his  absence.  He  was  toiling 
very  hard  over  the  needs  of  the  University  this  win- 
ter, and  he  wrote  and  published  in  the  spring  an  ex- 
haustive resume  of  the  work  done  in  the  various 
departments.  The  paper  is  so  singularly  impersonal 
that  it  reads  more  like  a  bulletin  than  a  eulogy;  but, 
being  designed  as  a  basis  for  begging  (an  endowment 
fund  of  thirty  millions  was  the  writer's  golden  dream), 
no  word  which  could  be  of  service  is  left  unsaid.  "We 
do  not  seem  to  attract  bequests  as  I  think  we  should/* 
is  his  anxious  comment  in  a  letter  to  Provost  Smith. 
"This  is  a  matter  which  will  slowly  right  itself,  but 
I  may  not  live  to  see  it." 

A  matter  of  less  moment,  but  one  which  had  long 
vexed  his  mind  when  he  had  leisure  to  think  about 
it,  was  the  dismal  decay  into  which  Rittenhouse 
Square  had  been  permitted  to  fall.  In  my  youth  this 
beloved  but  melancholy  little  park  was  shut  in  by 
tall  iron  railings  which  protected  its  gravel  walks, 
dead  turf,  and  moribund  trees  from  the  too  careless 
incursions  of  the  public.  When  the  English  sparrows 
had  performed  their  appointed  task,  and  had  eaten 
up  the  measuring  worms  which  were  wont  to  descend 
upon  us  adroitly  from  every  tree,  the  caterpillars 
took  their  place,  and  used  the  railings  for  nurseries. 


FREEDOM  209 

They  were  old  established  tenants  with  whom  no 
one  interfered.  It  was  a  shock  to  conservatism  when 
the  unsightly  barriers  were  removed,  and  lawless 
citizens  could  step  upon  what  was  by  courtesy  called 
the  grass. 

An  effort  had  been  made  to  have  the  Philadelphia 
squares  put  under  the  control  of  the  Fairmount  Park 
Commission,  which  might  possibly  have  done  some- 
thing for  them;  but  it  was  clear  to  all  concerned  that 
only  private  enterprise  could,  or  would,  deal  success- 
fully with  what  the  newspapers  were  beginning  to 
call  "the  city  beautiful."  The  Rittenhouse  Square 
Improvement  Association  met  for  the  first  time  on 
the  19th  of  February,  at  the  house  of  Mrs.  Edward 
Siter,  Dr.  White  acting  as  chairman.  Big  reforms 
were  planned,  and  money  was  liberally  subscribed. 
Dr.  White  was  elected  the  first  president  of  the  As- 
sociation. To  Professor  Paul  Cret  of  the  University 
of  Pennsylvania,  and  to  Dr.  Oglesby  Paul,  was  en- 
trusted the  work  of  transformation.  The  chief  of  the 
Bureau  of  City  Property  offered  any  cooperation 
which  did  not  involve  expenditure.  Philadelphia  had 
no  money  to  give,  but  was  gratifyingly  rich  in  good- 
will. 

It  would  have  been  hard  to  find  a  man,  in  or  out  of 
town,  who  knew  less  about  landscape  gardening  than 
did  Dr.  White;  but  no  one  was  better  fitted  to  bring 
any  enterprise  to  a  successful  close.  Moreover,  since 


210  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

he  had  become  a  landed  proprietor,  he  had  gradually 
assumed  the  "nature  hates  a  farmer"  tone,  common 
to  his  estate.  It  angered  him  when  a  transplanted 
tree  languished  and  died,  as  it  had  angered  him  in  the 
old  days  when  a  patient,  who  had  been  operated 
upon,  gave  up  the  fight  for  life.  Locusts,  he  scornfully 
pronounced  to  be  "weed  trees,"  easy  to  grow  and 
hard  to  kill;  yet  even  locusts,  planted  with  the  nicest 
tenderness  and  care  in  Rittenhouse  Square,  took  it 
upon  themselves  to  assume  delicacy  of  constitution, 
and  withered  away  because  he  had  an  interest  in 
their  survival. 

Yet  when  the  time  came  for  him  to  start  on  the 
long  voyage  around  the  world,  it  was  to  his  country 
home  that  his  affections  clung.  The  mangel-wurzels 
had  so  far  fulfilled  Sargent's  prediction,  and  cast 
their  spell  upon  him.  "I  hated  to  say  good-bye  yester- 
day to  the  farm,  and  the  horses,  and  the  dogs,"  he 
wrote  wistfully  to  Thomas  Robins.  "I  was  much  flat- 
tered by  learning  that  the  farmer's  second  boy  was 
in  tears  in  the  farmhouse  on  account  of  having  said 
good-bye  to  me.  Farmers  and  their  families  have 
been,  in  my  experience,  scarcely  human,  and  this  is 
both  touching  and  encouraging." 

Once  on  his  way,  the  old  adventurous  spirit  laid 
hold  of  him,  and  also  the  old  assurance  that  what  he 
was  doing  was  the  best  thing  in  the  world  to  do.  Mrs. 
White  was  as  unwearied  a  traveller  as  Sinbad,  and 


FREEDOM  211 

parting  from  the  mangel-wurzels  cost  her  no  pang  of 
regret.  She  was  also  better  able  to  bear  up  under  the 
depressing  baseball  news  which  followed  them  to  Eu- 
rope. The  few  hours  spent  at  Gibraltar  were  over- 
cast by  a  report  that  the  Athletics  had  lost  three  out 
of  their  first  five  games.  At  Menaggio  —  "throwing  a 
gloom  over  what  would  otherwise  have  been  a  very 
happy  day"  —  came  the  melancholy  tidings  that 
they  had  been  beaten  in  New  York  and  in  Cleveland. 
It  was  not  until  the  tourists  reached  Athens  in  Oc- 
tober that  Dr.  White's  fears  were  permanently  re- 
lieved. "As  Letty  came  upstairs  last  night,"  he 
writes  on  the  16th,  "she  captured  a  Herald  of  the 
10th,  with  the  inspiring,  uplifting,  and  exhilarating 
news  of  the  eight  to  two  score  in  our  favour  in  the 
third  game.  We've  now  used  three  pitchers,  and 
they  've  used  six.  I  think  it 's  a  three  to  one  bet  on  the 
Athletics.  I'm  surprised  no  one  has  cabled  me." 

It  was  inevitable  that  the  diary  kept  this  autumn 
and  winter  should  be  far  more  minute  than  those  of 
earlier  years.  Turkey,  India,  China,  and  Japan  offered 
fresh  fields  of  adventure.  Dr.  White  wanted  to  be  less 
expansive,  he  would  have  liked  to  spare  himself  fa- 
tigue; but  he  simply  did  not  know  how.  "I've  got 

this  d d  diary  business  so  fixed  on  me  that  I  can't 

tell  when  to  stop,"  he  wrote  querulously  from  Greece. 
"I'm  always  thinking  of  my  later,  invalid,  semi-se- 
nile years,  when  it  will  be  the  little  things,  the  jokes, 


S12  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

the  unimportant  trifles,  which  will  bring  back  the  ex- 
periences I  shall  then  be  tremulously  trying  to  recall. 
...  I  swear,  however,  I'm  going  to  write  less.  It's  an 
awful  habit.  When  once  it  has  you  in  its  vice-like 
grip,  only  the  iron  will,  and  the  determination  and 
endurance  of  a  Christian  martyr  can  break  it.  But 
I've  got  them.  So  now  you  know." 

Many  of  the  descriptions  of  people  and  of  places 
are  marvellous  in  their  vigour  and  veracity.  What 
Dr.  White  looked  at,  he  saw,  and  what  he  saw  seemed 
to  be  indelibly  impressed  upon  his  memory.  He  ac- 
centuated every  detail  because  he  remembered  every 
detail,  and  because  he  was  not  squeamish  in  delinea- 
tion. In  Venice,  he  and  Mrs.  WTiite  went  to  an  eve- 
ning party  given  by  Mr.  Anthony  Drexel  in  the  Pa- 
lazzo Balbi  Valier.  It  was  an  unusual  assemblage,  and 
there  is  a  series  of  pen  pictures  in  the  diary,  proving 
that  no  single  personality  was  lost  upon  the  attentive 
American.  The  guest  who  offered  him  the  keenest 

diversion  was  the  Marchesa ,  the  daughter  of  an 

English  Parliamentarian,  who  spent  his  life  in  finding 
fault  with  things  as  they  were,  and  in  taking  his  coun- 
trymen to  task  for  their  shortcomings. 

"She  deserves  a  page  to  herself.  If  it  were  a  page  of 
letter  paper,  it  would  make  most  of  the  clothes  she 
wore.  Her  gown  was  of  an  X-ray  sort,  cut  down  and 
slit  up,  and  I  don't  think  she  had  on  any  underwear, 
though  I  did  n't  make  sure.  If  she  had  been  dressed 


FREEDOM  213 

in  a  one-piece,  cream-coloured,  wet,  close-fitting 
bathing-suit  made  of  mosquito  netting,  she'd  have 
been  about  as  much  clad.  Her  black  hair  was  brought 
down  in  great  curves  to  her  eyebrows,  and  over  her 
ears,  out  on  her  cheek,  and  down  her  neck.  Her  eyes 
were  blacked,  her  lips  scarlet,  her  face  powdered,  her 
cheeks  rouged.  She  sat  in  a  studied  pose,  holding  a 
flower  in  her  hand.  During  the  singing  she  never 
changed  her  attitude  except  to  roll  her  eyes  at  the 
man  she  was  talking  to,  or  to  smell  her  flower,  or  to 
get  a  little  mirror  out  of  her  hand-bag,  look  at  her- 
self, and  touch  up  with  powder  and  rouge.  She  may, 
of  course,  be  a  model  mother  and  housewife,  who 
mends  her  own  clothes  —  it  would  n't  take  her  long  — 
and  teaches  the  children  their  A,  B,  C's;  but  she  is  a 
corker  for  gall.  How  she  ever  made  up  her  mind  to 
wear  that  costume  outside  of  her  bath-room  gets  me." 
No  part  of  their  stay  in  Egypt  pleased  the  travel- 
lers half  so  well  as  a  five  days'  ride  through  the  des- 
ert. Their  little  caravan  consisted  of  thirteen  men, 
including  Mahmoud  the  dragoman,  eight  camels,  and 
Mahmoud's  donkey.  "I  certainly  am  stuck  on  cam- 
els," comments  Dr.  White.  "I  always  liked  them, 
now  I  love  them.  They  are  so  well  fitted  to  their  busi- 
ness, and  know  it,  and  attend  to  it.  I  think  they  are 
extremely  intelligent.  The  Bedouins  seem  very  kind 
to  them.  One  boy  cried  yesterday  morning  because 
he  thought  they  were  overloading  his  special  charge." 


S14  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

Next  to  the  camels  and  the  great  stretches  of  sand, 
which  filled  his  soul  with  a  sort  of  ecstasy  (he  re- 
sented Lake  Kerun  and  the  green  tract  of  the  Fay- 
oum  as  intrusions  on  their  monotonous  splendour), 
the  doctor's  heart  went  out  to  the  Arab  boys  who 
walked  with  swift  light  strides  alongside  of  their 
beasts.  He  envied  them  —  being  sixty-three  —  their 
supple  youth  and  endurance.  "They  are  all  bare- 
foot, and  go  over  the  pebbles  and  rocks  without  the 
least  evidence  of  discomfort.  My  lad  covered  nine- 
teen miles  the  first  day,  and  eighteen  miles  the  sec- 
ond, often  running  to  keep  up,  chattering  half  the 
time,  and  minding  it  as  much  as  Sam  would  mind  a 
stroll  around  Rittenhouse  Square." 

India  and  China  afford  so  many  thrills,  even  to 
indifferent  tourists,  and  breed  in  them  such  a  lust 
for  description,  that  people  who  stay  at  home  are  apt 
to  resent  any  allusion  to  these  amazing  countries. 
"What  I  have  seen  I  do  not  need  to  hear  about,  and 
what  I  have  not  seen  I  do  not  want  to  hear  about," 
is  the  common  and  pardonable  attitude  of  humanity. 
But  there  was  something  in  Dr.  WThite's  frenzy  of 
enthusiasm,  united  to  his  very  unusual  gift  of  narra- 
tive, which  conquered  the  most  reluctant  reader  and 
listener.  Now  and  then  interesting  things  happened 
to  him,  and  he  told  about  them  in  a  forceful  and 
amusing  way.  At  Bombay  he  and  Mrs.  White  were 
invited  to  visit  the  Gaekwar  of  Baroda,  a  very  rich 


FREEDOM  215 

and  very  powerful  native  prince,  who  had  scandal- 
ized England  and  India  by  refusing  to  withdraw 
backwards  from  the  presence  of  King  George  and 
Queen  Mary  when  he  came  to  offer  fealty  to  his 
suzerain.  He  wheeled  around  and  strode  out  of  the 
audience  hall  as  if  he  were  every  whit  as  good  as  a 
Hanoverian. 

Dr.  White,  however,  found  him  far  from  awe- 
inspiring.  A  short,  stout,  jovial  Indian  gentleman, 
very  much  interested  in  the  United  States  (he  had 
sent  a  son  to  Harvard),  in  physical  education,  and  hi 
Theodore  Roosevelt.  He  presented  his  guests  with 
his  photograph,  and  entertained  them  with  sports 
which  began  with  trained  parrots,  progressed  to 
wrestlers  and  acrobats,  and  wound  up  with  fighting 
buffaloes  and  elephants.  The  most  extraordinary 
thing  about  him  was  the  extent  of  his  useless  pos- 
sessions, ranging  from  a  gold  cannon  which  could  n't 
be  fired,  and  which  was  mounted  on  a  silver  gun- 
carriage,  to  the  famous  diamond,  Star  of  the  South, 
once  the  property  of  Napoleon  the  First,  and  valued 
at  $1,200,000.  Being  the  wealthiest  ruler  in  India, 
the  Gaekwar  could  afford  unprofitable  investments. 

The  sights  which  of  all  others  in  the  East  enthralled 
Dr.  White's  fancy  were  the  Burning  Ghats  of  Ben- 
ares. The  combination  they  presented  of  pictur- 
esqueness,  loathsomeness,  and  unique  rejection  of 
the  world's  theories  of  sanitation,  so  fascinated  the 


216  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

American  surgeon  that  he  returned  again  and  again, 
to  spend  hours  in  rapt  contemplation  of  their  horrors. 
It  is  impossible  to  quote  more  than  half  of  a  single 
morning's  experience;  but  this  is  enough  to  show 
that  he  missed  no  detail,  and  spared  none  to  his 
readers. 

"Every  Hindu  is  burned,  —  completely  if  the 
family  can  afford  to  buy  enough  wood,  but  partially 
anyhow,  and,  in  Benares,  the  ashes  or  scraps  are 
flung  into  the  Ganges.  It  is  a  sanitary  stream.  What 
we  actually  saw,  lying  in  our  boat  ten  or  twelve 
feet  from  the  biggest  of  the  ghats,  beggars  descrip- 
tion. One  body  lay  on  a  pile  of  logs,  and  was  covered 
with  wood,  a  single  foot  protruding.  Another  was 
wrapped  in  a  shroud.  A  third  we  knew  to  be  a  woman 
by  the  red  cloth  that  covered  her.  A  fourth  was  a 
very  pretty  little  girl  with  long  hair.  She  was  about 
seven  or  eight  years  old. 

"While  corpse  number  one  was  beginning  to  burn, 
and  make  a  fine  fat  crackling,  two  men  undressed 
the  little  girl,  washed  her  with  Ganges  water,  laid  a 
strip  of  white  cloth  over  her  middle,  and  wrapped 
another  around  her.  They  then  carried  her  up  to  the 
pyre  built  for  her  on  a  platform  fifteen  or  twenty 
feet  higher.  By  this  time  corpse  number  one  was  well 
under  way.  Now  and  then  a  toe  from  the  protruding 
foot  would  burst,  some  melted  grease  would  sputter 
and  flare  up  in  the  fire,  and  there  would  be  an  un- 


FREEDOM  217 

pleasant  whiff.  The  men  who  sold  fire-wood,  the 
priests  who  say  —  for  a  consideration  —  when  the 
auspicious  moment  has  come  for  the  application  of 
the  torch,  the  men  who  furnish  the  fire,  the  men  who 
wash  the  bodies  and  put  them  on  the  pyres,  all  stood 
about  joking  and  laughing,  as  well  they  might.  They 
make  their  living  by  taking  the  petty  coins  —  the 
pice,  of  which  it  takes  two  to  make  a  cent  —  from 
the  poorest  people  in  the  world  who  have  any  coins 
at  all. 

"While  this  was  going  on,  ten  yards  away,  at  the 
foot  of  the  next  ghat  —  the  Manikarnika  —  were 
many  devotees  scooping  up  the  water  that  went 
from  us  to  them  (the  Ganges  flows  to  the  north), 
sprinkling  their  heads  with  it,  and  drinking  it  out  of 
their  hands.  Just  at  our  feet  an  old  hag  was  washing 
out  the  dirty  sacking  which  had  been  the  little  girl's 
grave  clothes.  To  our  left,  almost  near  enough  to 
touch,  a  Pariah  dog  had  made  a  great  find.  He  was 
dragging  from  the  water,  up  on  the  mud  where  he 
could  eat  at  leisure,  the  remains  of  a  body  only  half 
burned.  It  will  be  remembered  that  the  poorest 
people  are  unable  to  buy  enough  wood  to  make  a 
good  job  of  it.  They  do  the  best  they  can,  and  what 
is  not  burned  goes  into  the  river.  While  the  dog  was 
at  breakfast,  and  while  the  worshippers  were  drink- 
ing the  water  which  came  to  them  from  his  break- 
fast table,  and  from  the  old  hag's  laundry,  and  while 


218  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

corpse  number  one  was  blazing  merrily,  a  man  ap- 
peared above  with  a  lot  of  thin  burning  sticks  in  his 
hand.  He  walked  five  times  around  the  body  of  the 
little  girl,  touching  her  head  each  time,  and  then  set 
fire  to  her  pyre.  The  men  on  the  steps  of  the  ghat 
were  joking  and  laughing  loudly.  Nearby  two  boys 
were  wrestling.  At  the  further  end  of  the  steps,  a  long 
file  of  washerwomen  went  up  with  enormous  baskets 
on  their  heads,  carrying  clothes  that  had  just  been 
cleaned  in  the  same  current  that  was  running  past 
the  burning  ghat,  and  the  dog  and  his  meal,  and  the 
old  hag  with  the  child's  coarse  shroud,  down  to  the 
worshippers  who  were  always  there,  one  succeeding 
another,  and  always  drinking. 

"We  pushed  off  and  went  with  the  stream,  and,  as 
we  did  so,  we  saw  another  contribution  to  the  sacred- 
ness  of  the  beverage.  A  new  procession  came  down 
the  river,  but  this  time  it  was  of  dead  animals, 
chiefly  cats,  swollen  until  they  were  as  big  as  goats, 
and  a  donkey  that  looked  like  a  young  elephant. 
Mercy !  what  a  thirst  that  must  have  given  the  dev- 
otees when  they  saw  it!" 

Christmas  was  spent  on  the  train  going  to  Rangoon, 
and  there  is  this  characteristic  entry  in  the  diary: 

"If  when  I  was  a  very  small  boy,  getting  up  Christ- 
mas mornings  in  the  dark,  and  catching  croup  by 
reading  Christmas  books  in  my  nightshirt  and  bare 
feet,  I  could  have  seen  myself  riding  across  the  plains 


FREEDOM  219 

of  Burmah,  and  going  to  golden  pagodas,  and  star- 
ing at  hundreds  of  gigantic  idols,  and  shaven-headed 
Lamas  with  their  chelas  carrying  their  begging  bowls, 
and  crowds  of  black,  yellow,  and  copper-coloured 
natives  in  robes  of  every  hue  of  the  rainbow,  and 
priests  ringing  bells  and  beating  gongs  and  burn- 
ing incense,  and  flower-decked  girls  bowing  before 
shrines,  and  all  the  picturesque  and  barbaric  rest  of 
it,  —  well,  I'd  have  been  delirious  with  delight." 

In  Colombo  came  word  of  Dr.  Weir  Mitchell's 
death.  Two  lines  in  a  local  paper  announced  the  tid- 
ings; but  even  two  lines  in  the  Colombo  press  spell 
fame  for  a  Philadelphia  doctor;  and  it  was  bad  news 
for  the  Philadelphian  who  read  it. 

After  the  "dear  old  ghats"  of  Benares,  no  spectacle 
afforded  Dr.  White  a  more  acute  interest  than  did 
the  narrow  streets  of  Canton,  and  the  broad  expanse 
of  the  Pearl  River,  with  its  hundreds  of  thousands  of 
inhabitants,  living  and  dying  on  the  boats  on  which 
they  were  born.  He  delighted  in  the  little  painted 
pigs  —  blue  and  yellow  and  purple  spots  decorating 
their  fat  sides  —  which  roamed  unmolested  through 
the  byways;  in  the  agile  night  watchmen  who  pa- 
trolled the  roofs  instead  of  the  streets;  hi  the  sinister 
old  Place  of  Execution,  where  more  people  have  been 
put  to  death  than  on  any  equal  area  of  the  earth's 
surface.  The  Chinese  children,  who  never  begged, 
gave  him  the  impression  of  good-humour,  common 


220  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

sense,  and  stability;  and  in  the  Chinese  restaurants 
he  was  charmed  with  his  own  skill  in  using  chop 
sticks,  contrasting  the  ease  and  grace  of  his  perform- 
ance with  the  clumsiness  of  Mrs.  White,  who  was 
sometimes  reduced  to  the  necessity  of  conveying  her 
food  to  her  mouth  with  her  fingers. 

The  University  of  Pennsylvania  Settlement  in  Can- 
ton impressed  Dr.  White  profoundly.  His  former  stu- 
dent and  old  acquaintance,  Dr.  Joseph  McCracken, 
was  at  the  head  of  the  hospital,  which  was  run  by 
half  a  dozen  graduates  of  the  University  Medical 
School.  All  of  these  men  had  married  college  grad- 
uates, and  all  were  striving  to  accomplish  herculean 
tasks  with  the  scanty  resources  at  then*  command.  A 
codicil  in  Dr.  WTiite's  will,  bequeathing  five  thousand 
dollars  to  Dr.  McCracken,  or  to  his  successor,  for  the 
use  of  the  hospital,  proves  the  practical  nature  of  his 
regard.  It  was  the  old  story  of  his  undying  interest 
in  all  things  connected  with  his  Alma  Mater.  He 
was  ill  when  he  reached  Yokohama,  and  the  doctors 
warned  him  against  exposure;  but  he  went  in  a  blind- 
ing snow  storm  to  Tokio,  to  attend  a  dinner  given 
by  the  University  of  Pennsylvania  Alumni  Associa- 
tion of  Japan. 

"They  were  all  Japs  of  course.  There  was  a  speech 
by  Tosui  Imadate,  C.E.  Class  of  1879,  laudatory  of 
me,  and  welcoming  me  to  Japan.  There  was  a  speech 
by  me,  laudatory  of  the  University,  and  thanking 


FREEDOM 

them  for  their  welcome.  There  were  many  little 
speeches  —  most  of  them  by  me  —  and  some  inter- 
esting reminiscences." 

To  visit  Japan  in  mid-winter  is  a  hazardous  ex- 
perience. It  insures  discomfort,  and  it  affords  gen- 
erous opportunities  for  disease.  Dr.  White  tried  to 
solace  himself  with  the  reflection  that  freshly  fallen 
snow  is  as  beautiful  as  blossoming  cherry  trees;  but 
no  aesthetic  appreciation  of  the  ice-bound  scenery 
could  keep  the  travellers  warm.  Nikko  in  February 
was  as  cosy  as  Lapland.  They  had  soft  coal  fires  in 
their  grates,  and  in  their  worthless  little  Japanese 
stoves;  they  had  brass  vessels  with  smouldering 
charcoal  embers  over  which  to  hold  their  frozen 
hands  and  feet;  but  the  rooms  remained  "colder  — 
much  colder  than  Hell,"  and  Dr.  White  speedily  de- 
veloped influenza.  He  had  himself  carried  around  to 
temples  and  mausoleums,  he  missed  no  sight  that 
Nikko  offered;  but  he  was  well  aware  of  his  own 
unutterable  folly. 

" If  I  had  a  patient  as  ill  as  I  am,  and  he  said :  'May 
I  go  out  on  a  mountain-side  among  snow  fields,  walk 
on  slushy  paths,  climb  hundreds  of  ice-cold  stone 
steps,  stand  around  draughty,  windy  temples,  sit 
down  occasionally  on  a  frozen  board,  and  take  off  my 
shoes,  and  walk  about  in  slippers  for  a  half-hour,  and 
then  put  congealed  shoes  on  my  frosted  feet?'  I'd 
reply:  'You  belong  in  Kirkbride's.'" 


222  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

Fortunately  the  "distant  sights,'*  lakes,  water- 
falls, and  the  like,  were  all  iced  over  or  snowed  under, 
and  the  roads  leading  to  them  were  impassable,  so 
they  were  left  out  of  the  programme. 

The  spring  was  well  advanced  when  the  travellers 
returned  to  their  native  land,  and  to  their  native 
town.  There  was  a  noisy  demonstration  of  welcome 
at  the  Pennsylvania  station.  Dr.  Martin  had  staged 
the  show,  and  had  engaged  a  band,  so  that  the  home- 
coming was  a  little  like  a  Roman  triumph.  The  stu- 
dents cheered,  the  engines  puffed,  the  band  brayed 
and  fluted,  and  the  few  words  which  Dr.  White  tried 
to  say  were  lost  in  the  uproar.  It  was  an  animated 
scene. 

The  months  that  preceded  the  Great  War  were 
marked  by  unrest  without  prescience,  and  by  a  feel- 
ing of  insecurity  which  had  no  sense  of  direction.  In 
England,  a  wave  of  hysteria  had  swept  women  past 
the  border  line  of  sanity.  They  did  strange  deeds 
of  violence,  and  their  lawlessness  was  the  childish 
and  terrifying  lawlessness  of  fanaticism.  Among 
other  pitiful  and  purposeless  acts  of  destruction,  they 
slashed  Sargent's  admirable  portrait  of  Henry  James, 
then  hanging  in  the  Royal  Academy.  Mr.  James  had 
written  to  Dr.  White  of  his  profound  pleasure  in  this 
masterpiece,  and  of  his  desire  to  show  it  to  his  friend. 

"Yes,  J.  S.  S.  has  finished  the  loveliest  portrait  of 
me,  the  loveliest,  but  one,  he  has  ever  painted  of  any 


FREEDOM  223 

mere  male.  It's  just  done,  and  will  be  doubtless  var- 
nished and  framed  by  the  time  you  come  around  to 
see  it.  I  am  quite  ashamed  to  admire  it  as  I  do. 
It  makes  me  feel  as  if  I  were  smirking  before  the 
glass." 

The  connection  between  a  portrait  painted  by  an 
American  artist  of  an  American  novelist  and  the  ex- 
tension of  the  British  franchise  was  hard  to  trace. 
The  picture  was  reported  to  be  injured  beyond  re- 
demption, and  the  peculiar  inconsequence  of  the 
crime  deepened  the  anger  and  disgust  which  were  felt 
on  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic.  Mr.  James's  regret  over 
the  "bloody  gashes"  was  equalled  by  his  delight 
when  the  canvas  was  so  adroitly  mended  that  not  a 
cicatrice  was  visible.  He  was  pleased,  too,  at  the 
indignation  expressed  in  the  United  States;  and  he 
suggested,  with  some  show  of  reason,  that  the  sym- 
pathy of  his  countrymen  might  find  fitting  expression 
in  a  more  generous  purchase  of  his  books.  Sargent 
wrote  to  Dr.  White,  sending  him  a  photograph  of  the 
portrait,  and  telling  him  that  it  would  be  hung  in  its 
old  place  as  soon  as  the  restoration  was  completed. 
"It  looked  hopeless,"  he  added,  "as  if  several  bombs 
had  burst  through  it;  but  now  there  is  no  trace  of  the 
damage." 

If  Dr.  White  had  not  been  the  true  Wandering 
Gentile,  the  summer  of  1914  would  have  seen  him 
recovering  serenely  from  the  excesses  of  his  eight 


224  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

months'  journey,  and  contenting  himself  with  coun- 
try life,  —  until  the  breaking  of  the  war-cloud  de- 
stroyed the  contentment  of  the  world.  But  his  habits 
were  too  firmly  fixed  to  admit  a  change.  He  did  a 
thing  because  he  had  always  done  it;  and  as  he  had 
always  spent  a  portion  of  his  summer  at  St.  Moritz 
and  Menaggio,  he  could  not  conceive  the  possibility 
of  passing  these  months  elsewhere.  "On  account  of 
the  threatened  European  war  we  were  a  trifle  uneasy 
about  sailing,"  he  writes  July  31st,  "but  had  no 
serious  thought  of  any  derangement  of  our  plans." 
He  and  Mrs.  White  were  actually  in  New  York, 
ready  to  sail  on  the  Princess  Irene,  and  they  waited 
four  days  before  realizing  that  the  ship  would  never 
put  to  sea.  By  August  3d  all  hopes  of  peace  had 
vanished,  and,  on  the  4th,  the  relentless  travellers 
—  determined  to  go  somewhere  —  started  for  Can- 
ada and  Alaska.  For  over  a  month  they  pursued  the 
beauties  of  nature  at  Banff,  or  dawdled  through  mo- 
notonous days  on  Alaskan  waters,  while,  at  home, 
men  waited  tensely  hour  by  hour  for  news  which, 
when  it  came,  filled  all  hearts  with  apprehension. 
They  were  at  Sitka  the  day  that  Aerschot  was  bar- 
barously sacked;  they  watched  a  "panorama  of 
mountains  and  forests"  while  the  Germans  entered 
Liege;  they  had  reached  Seattle  when  Lou  vain  was 
fired.  News  came  to  them  tardily,  or  not  at  all.  They 
might  have  been  sleeping  beauties  in  the  wood,  so 


FREEDOM  225 

remote  they  seemed  from  a  world  seething  with  hor- 
rors, and  hatreds,  and  crimes  which  cried  out  to 
Heaven  for  vengeance.  It  was  not  until  they  returned 
home  on  the  12th  of  September  that  Dr.  White  awoke 
to  the  full  and  bitter  realization  of  what  was  happen- 
ing in  Europe.  From  that  hour  until  death  struck 
him,  he  never  ceased  to  work  with  all  the  vigour 
of  his  resolute  nature  for  outraged  civilization  and 
humanity. 


CHAPTER  XI 

THE  GREAT  WAR 

f  1 1H.E  heart,"  says  Lord  Shaftesbury,  "cannot  re- 
A  main  neutral,  but  takes  part  constantly  one  way 
or  the  other."  Individual  neutrality  was  to  Dr.  White 
a  form  of  mental  and  moral  cowardice.  He  held  that 
no  rational  being  has  a  right  to  plead  ignorance  when 
knowledge  is  attainable,  or  to  be  indifferent  to  mat- 
ters of  right  and  wrong.  Despite  a  temporary  irrita- 
tion at  England's  behaviour  in  the  complicated  busi- 
ness of  the  Panama  Canal,  his  sympathies  had  always 
been  soundly  British  and  democratic.  He  could  never 
have  ranged  himself  with  Imperial  Germany,  or  with 
Austria,  steeped  to  the  lips  in  crime.  The  ultimatum 
to  Serbia  seemed  to  him  the  epitome  of  bullying; 
and  the  grossness  with  which  the  Central  Powers 
disturbed  the  peace  of  Europe  angered  him,  as  it  an- 
gered all  law-abiding  men.  But  it  was  the  invasion 
of  Belgium,  and  the  ferocity  of  Germany's  campaign 
in  that  unhappy  land,  which  changed  him  from  a 
moderate  to  an  extreme  partisan  of  the  Allies.  He  was 
like  a  man  who  knows  that  behind  closed  doors  a 
child  is  being  butchered,  a  woman  is  being  violated, 
and  who  cannot  break  through  and  interpose.  To  ask 
such  a  one  to  be  neutral  in  deed  is  to  cripple  his  man- 


THE  GREAT  WAR  227 

hood;  to  ask  him  to  be  neutral  in  thought  is  to  bid 
him  be  accessory  to  sin. 

Two  things  were  made  clear  from  the  start  to  this 
acute,  though  not  dispassionate,  observer.  He  knew 
that  the  war  was  the  greatest  moral  issue  ever  pre- 
sented to  a  quibbling  world;  and  he  knew  that  it  was 
from  its  first  inception  a  logical  and  consistent  ex- 
pression of  Germany's  national  creed.  He  saw  it  one 
and  indivisible  in  every  fresh  development.  The 
curious  process  by  which  the  Teuton's  warm  apolo- 
gists became  in  time  half-hearted  opponents  had  for 
him  neither  sense  nor  sincerity.  He  did  not  separate 
a  conformable  and  harmonious  whole  into  jarring 
phases.  The  sinking  of  the  Lusitania,  —  Germany's 
whip-lash  across  our  nation's  face,  the  surpassing 
insolence  of  Count  von  Bernstorff  and  other  officials, 
left  him  unchanged.  He  needed  no  fresh  proof  of 
German  malevolence  because  he  had  never  sought 
to  deceive  his  own  soul. 

The  amiable  illusion  of  a  good  German  people, 
misruled  and  misrepresented  by  a  bad  Prussian  mili- 
tarism, is,  and  has  always  been,  foundationless. 
There  was  no  class  in  Germany  untainted  by  na- 
tional avarice.  One  and  all  they  were  eager  for  the 
spoils  of  war.  One  and  all  they  stood  ready  to  defend 
any  method  by  which  these  spoils  might  be  secured. 
The  German  professors  who  lied  glibly  for  their 
Kaiser,  the  German  clergy  who  preached  his  bloody 


228  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

doctrine  from  their  pulpits,  the  German  socialists 
who  bent  their  supple  knees,  the  German  tradesmen 
and  artisans  from  whose  serried  ranks  no  word  of 
protest  ever  issued,  the  German  women  who  shamed 
their  sex  by  coarse  insults  to  wounded  prisoners,  — 
what  was  there  to  condone  in  this  nation-wide  guilt? 
Dr.  White  wasted  no  sentiment  upon  a  people  who, 
if  they  had  not  ordered  the  war,  gave  to  its  every 
crime  their  full  concurrence.  He  fought  with  the 
weapons  at  his  command  the  poisonous  propaganda 
tolerated  and  encouraged  in  the  United  States  during 
the  first  months  of  the  contest.  The  hectoring  tone 
adopted  by  German-Americans,  their  threats,  their 
treachery,  and  their  violence,  wounded  his  pride, 
and  outraged  his  sense  of  decency.  That  they  should 
have  held  us  to  be  capable  of  cowardice,  and  incapa- 
ble of  understanding,  was  a  double-barrelled  affront 
he  could  never  bring  himself  to  pardon. 

His  first  ardent  hope  was  that  he  might  be  per- 
mitted to  raise  a  corps  of  American  surgeons  who 
would  work  in  the  Allied  ranks.  He  wrote  to  Dr. 
—  now  Sir  William  —  Osier,  and  to  the  French 
ambassador,  M.  Jusserand,  proffering  his  services. 
Pending  their  replies,  he  busied  himself  in  prepar- 
ing his  "Primer  of  the  War  for  Americans,"  and  in 
collecting  funds  for  the  Louvain  professors,  who, 
after  the  destruction  of  their  University  and  of  their 
homes,  had  fled  to  England,  and  found  a  temporary 


THE  GREAT  WAR  229 

refuge  in  Oxford.  Osier  had  written  to  him  early  in 
October,  begging  him  to  interest  himself  in  these 
victims  of  German  barbarity.  "We  have  here  now 
seven  or  eight  Belgian  professors  and  their  families. 
Many  of  them  are  charming  people,  and  some  are 
destitute.  If  you  can  squeeze  a  few  hundred  dollars 
out  of  any  of  your  friends,  we  shall  be  much  obliged." 

Dr.  White  squeezed  five  thousand  dollars  with 
such  amazing  ease  and  rapidity  that  the  first  cheque 
reached  Oxford  on  October  28th.  By  that  time  the 
number  of  professors  had  increased  to  fifteen,  and 
there  were  twenty  more  in  Cambridge.  The  Rocke- 
feller Foundation  proffered  help.  "What  an  angel 
you  are!"  Osier  wrote  his  friend.  "It  is  perfectly 
splendid.  I  wish  you  could  look  in  here,  and  see  how 
comfortably  Grace  [Lady  Osier]  and  young  Mrs. 
Max  Mu'ller  have  settled  these  people.  Our  house  is 
nothing  but  a  junk  shop.  We  have  packing  cases 
arriving  every  week,  and  our  drawing-room  is  now 
a  sewing-room  for  the  wives  of  the  professors,  most 
of  whom  are  making  baby  clothes.  They  are  an 
extraordinary  lot." 

So  many  cares  and  labours  engrossed  the  great 
Canadian  doctor's  time,  and  so  many  difficulties 
beset  his  path,  that  it  was  a  relief  to  turn  to  Dr. 
White  for  sympathy  and  support.  "I  am  trying  to 
stir  up  the  anti-typhoid  inoculation,"  he  wrote  in 
October,  "and  have  been  addressing  open-air  meet- 


230  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

ings  of  the  men  in  camps.  I  wish  you  could  have  seen 
us  at  the  King  Edward  Horse  Camp,  near  Slough.  I 
spoke  to  the  soldiers  from  beside  a  big  oak  tree,  they 
sitting  about  on  the  ground,  and  afterwards  all  the 
officers  were  inoculated  as  an  example.  Those  sons  of 
Belial,  the  'antis,'  have  been  preaching  against  it." 

In  November  Dr.  White  went  to  Washington  to 
receive  an  honorary  fellowship  in  the  American  Col- 
lege of  Surgeons.  It  was  the  only  break  in  a  breath- 
less month.  He  was  working  hard  on  his  "Primer  of 
the  War  for  Americans,"  and  harder  still  to  raise 
money  and  collect  supplies  for  the  Philadelphia  ward 
of  the  American  Ambulance  Hospital  in  Paris.  The 
"Primer"  was  published  in  early  December.  In  his 
brief  preface  to  this  brief  handbook  he  stated  that 
he  began  it  to  clarify  his  own  thoughts,  to  ascertain 
distinctly  his  own  convictions,  and  his  reasons  for 
cherishing  them.  Twelve  plain  questions  are  plainly 
answered.  "WTierever  my  answers  have  involved 
matters  of  fact,  I  have  taken  pains  to  attain  accu- 
racy. When  they  have  related  to  matters  of  opinion,  I 
have  endeavoured  to  give  the  basis  for  such  opin- 
ions." 

The  book,  with  its  many  apt  and  illustrative  quo- 
tations, is  clear,  incisive,  and  systematic.  Germany 
has  been,  from  start  to  finish,  so  amazingly  liberal  in 
furnishing  evidence  against  herself,  she  has  talked  so 
loudly  and  so  blatantly,  that  she  can  be,  and  has 


THE  GREAT  WAR  231 

been,  condemned  out  of  her  own  mouth.1  Dr.  White's 
brochure  is  in  no  wise  comparable  to  such  masterly 
arraignments  as  "The  Evidence  in  the  Case,"  and 
"The  War  and  Humanity,"  works  of  weight  and  elo- 
quence, which  made  clear  to  thousands  of  American 
readers  the  tortuous  diplomacy  of  the  Central  Powers, 
and  the  depth  and  breadth  of  their  brutality.  Its 
author  had  neither  Mr.  Beck's  knowledge  of  inter- 
national law,  nor  his  skill  in  marshalling  arguments; 
but  he  made  his  appeal  in  straightforward,  manly 
fashion  to  the  decency  and  justice  of  a  world  which 
had  witnessed  the  supreme  frightfulness  of  vandalism. 
The  "Primer"  was  well  received  by  the  American 
press,  upon  which  Dr.  White  placed  an  unshaken 
reliance,  went  through  three  American  editions,  had 
a  fair  sale  in  England,  and  was  translated  into  five 
languages  by  the  Publicity  Committee  of  the  British 
Foreign  Office.  That  it  made  its  way  to  remote  allies 
is  evidenced  by  a  long  and  able  review  which  ap- 
peared in  the  "North-China  Daily  News,"  printed 
in  Shanghai,  February  2d.  Two  weeks  after  its  pub- 
lication, Dr.  White  was  at  work  on  "Germany  and 
Democracy,"  a  reply  to  the  amazing  statements  of 
Dr.  Dernburg,  one  of  the  most  active  and  vociferous 
members  of  the  Kaiser's  "foreign  legion."  It  seems 
incredible  now  that  these  publicists,  press  agents, 
and  professors,  so  liberally  paid  to  undermine  the 

1  William  Roscoe  Thayer:  Out  of  Their  own  Mouths. 


233  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

honour  and  honesty  of  the  United  States,  should 
have  been  encouraged  to  spread  their  propaganda 
throughout  the  land.  Many  of  them  were  plotting 
shamelessly  against  our  trade  and  our  safety,  and 
some  succeeded  in  doing  us  grievous  harm;  but  a 
credulous  and  bewildered  people  could  not  be 
brought  to  believe  in  such  duplicity.  Herr  Heinrich 
Friedrich  Albert  told  us  strange  tales  of  Belgian  in- 
humanity to  Germans.  Dr.  Dernburg,  relying  too 
securely  on  our  ignorance,  told  us  of  France's  viola- 
tion of  Belgium's  neutrality,  and  of  her  attempted 
invasion  of  the  Fatherland.  What  wonder  that  in 
this  monde  bestournS  there  were  men  who  did  not 
know  whether  the  wolf  was  eating  the  lamb,  or  the 
lamb  was  eating  the  wolf;  whether  St.  George  or  the 
dragon  was  defending  assaulted  humanity.  M.  Jus- 
serand  pointed  out  in  a  very  amusing  letter  to  Dr. 
White  the  discrepancies  in  two  of  Dr.  Dernburg's 
articles  which  were  published  simultaneously.  The 
worthy  Teuton  did  not  mind  giving  himself  the  lie. 
It  was  part  of  his  profound  contempt  for  the  intelli- 
gence of  the  American  periodicals  which  sought  his 
words,  and  of  the  American  public  which  read  them. 
Dr.  White  wrote  the  pamphlet,  "Germany  and 
Democracy,"  wholly  and  entirely  that  he  might 
have  the  pleasure  of  proving  Dr.  Dernburg's  men- 
dacity. He  called  in  my  help,  and  I  was  glad  to  give 
it;  but  the  speed  and  fury  with  which  he  worked  left 


THE  GREAT  WAR  233 

a  collaborator  toiling  far  behind.  It  was  my  first  in- 
timate acquaintance  with  his  literary  methods.  He 
wrote  three  fourths  of  the  pamphlet  rather  than 
wait  for  me  to  do  my  share.  I  could  no  more  have 
kept  pace  with  him  in  composition  than  I  could  have 
climbed  a  mountain  by  his  side. 

His  championship  of  France  and  England  won  him 
many  enemies.  Hyphenated  Americans  and  pacifists 
united  in  assailing  him,  and  agitated  ladies  wrote 
letters  to  newspapers,  deploring  the  violence  of  his 
language.  Ex-Governor  Pennypacker,  a  warm  sym- 
pathizer with  Germany's  aims  and  methods,  criti- 
cised him  bitterly  in  an  address  to  the  German  So- 
ciety of  Pennsylvania,  and  the  audience  howled  its 
reprobation  every  time  his  name  was  mentioned.  A 
Germanic  Sherlock  Holmes  divulged  this  dreadful 
secret:  "I  hear  from  good  authority  that  Professor 
White  is  the  closest  friend  of  Lord  Treuves,  the  phy- 
sician of  King  George,  and  visits  him  frequently. 
Now  may  I  ask  Professor  White  what  it  was  worth 
to  him  to  be  persuaded  by  his  friends,  George  and 
Treuves,  to  stir  up  Americans  by  false  and  lying 
misstatements?  May  I  ask  what  was  the  price?" 

So  persistent  was  this  abuse  that  it  became  one  of 
Dr.  Martin's  cherished  pastimes  to  call  his  friend  up 
on  the  telephone,  and  in  guttural  German  accents, 
which  deceived  the  listener  for  a  moment,  threaten 
him  with  dire  retribution.  "The  Little  Brothers  of 


234  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

Germany,"  to  use  a  phrase  of  Mr.  Chapman's,  were 
so  loud-voiced  in  1915  that  one  wonders  their  silence 
in  1917  did  not  choke  them.  Month  after  month  an 
ever-increasing  list  of  savageries  made  more  difficult 
their  defence  of  the  fatherland.  The  wisest  of  them 
fell  back  once  and  for  all  upon  the  solid  support  of 
General  von  Disfurth's  pronouncement:  "Germany 
stands  as  the  supreme  arbiter  of  her  own  methods, 
which  must  be  dictated  to  the  world.'* 

From  Henry  James,  to  whom  Dr.  White  had  sent 
the  pamphlets,  came  an  incandescent  letter  of  de- 
light and  relief.  "With  passion  I  desire  that  those 
who  surround  you  should  range  themselves  intel- 
ligently on  the  side  of  civilization  and  humanity 
against  the  most  monstrous  menace  that  has  ever, 
since  the  birth  of  time,  gathered  strength  for  an 
assault  upon  the  liberties,  the  decencies,  the  pieties 
and  fidelities,  the  whole  liberal,  genial,  many-sided 
energy  of  our  race." 

Sargent,  painting  tranquilly  in  the  Dolomites 
when  the  war-bomb  burst  upon  the  world,  had  been 
caught  without  passport,  without  money,  and  with 
"every  symptom  of  being  a  spy."  He  made  his  diffi- 
cult way  back  to  England;  and  James  wrote  to  Dr. 
White  in  the  early  spring  that  a  noble  desire  to  be  of 
service  had  driven  the  emancipated  painter  back  to 
the  work  he  had  forsaken. 

"You  will  no  doubt  have  seen  how,  at  a  great 


THE  GREAT  WAR  235 

auction-sale  of  artistic  treasures  sent  by  the  benev- 
olent for  conversion  into  Red  Cross  money,  Sir  Hugh 
Lane  bid  two  thousand  pounds  for  an  empty  canvas 
of  John's,  to  be  covered  by  the  latter  with  the  portrait 
of  a  person  chosen  by  Lane.  What  a  luxury  to  be  able 
to  resolve  one's  genius  into  so  splendid  a  donation! 
It  is  n't  known  yet  who  is  to  be  the  paintee,  but  that's 
a  comparatively  insignificant  detail." 

On  March  4th,  Dr.  White  was  able  to  announce 
that  he  would  sail  hi  June  with  the  surgeons,  physi- 
cians, and  nurses  chosen  from  the  staff  of  the  Uni- 
versity of  Pennsylvania  to  take  charge  of  the  hundred 
and  eighty  beds  consigned  to  their  care  in  the  Amer- 
ican Ambulance  Hospital  in  Paris.  His  first  plan  of 
raising  a  corps  of  army  surgeons  had  been  frustrated 
by  the  reluctance  of  the  Allied  Powers,  of  France 
especially,  to  admit  the  American  doctors  into  their 
service.  He  therefore  turned  his  time  and  attention 
to  the  one  hospital  he  could  help,  and  which  was 
always  in  need  of  assistance.  A  month  before  his 
public  announcement,  he  wrote  to  Tom  Robins  that 
the  generous  response  of  the  public  kept  pace  with  all 
demands. 

"We  have  now  opened  a  Philadelphia  ward  of 
forty  beds  in  the  American  Ambulance  Hospital  in 
Paris  —  the  very  best  ward  hospital  in  Europe  — 
and  have  the  money  to  support  it  for  six  months.  We 
are  trying  to  get  enough  money  for  a  year,  and  are 


236  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

within  $7000  of  it.  The  fund  for  the  University 
representation  must,  however,  be  entirely  separate, 
as  people  of  all  affiliations,  including  some  of  the 
Jefferson  men,  have  been  active  in  raising  the  general 
fund. 

"Pennsylvania  must  do,  not  only  good  work,  but 
work  which  will  compare  well  with  whatever  is  done 
by  the  Western  Reserve  and  by  Harvard.  Dr.  Crile 
is  over  there  now  with  an  entire  floor  of  a  hundred 
and  fifty  beds  under  his  care.  He  took  with  him  a 
party  of  twelve,  at  a  cost  of  eleven  or  twelve  thousand 
dollars.  His  term  of  service  includes  January,  Feb- 
ruary and  March.  Harvard  has  secured  April,  May 
and  June.  I  accepted  in  behalf  of  Pennsylvania  for 
July,  August  and  September,  trusting  that  in  some 
way  I  should  secure  the  funds. 

"Jim  Hutchinson  will  go  and  take  his  assistant.  I 
shall  pay  my  expenses,  and  Jim  will  pay  his;  but  the 
younger  men  and  the  nurses,  while  willing  to  give 
their  services,  and  run  whatever  risk  there  is  about 
it,  have  no  money  to  spend  on  themselves." 

On  the  8th  of  May  came  word  of  the  sinking  of  the 
Lusitania.  It  was  an  event  which  harmonized  with 
Germany's  avowed  principles,  and  fulfilled  her  avowed 
intentions.  She  went  as  mad  with  delight  when  the 
deed  was  done  as  if  it  had  been  dauntless  and  danger- 
ous. The  immediate  result  in  Great  Britain  was  a 
hardening  of  the  national  fibre,  a  conviction  that  it 


THE  GREAT  WAR  237 

was  better  to  die  fighting  than  to  yield  to  a  power 
capable  of  such  inhumanity.  In  the  United  States, 
German-American  societies,  and  their  affiliated  Irish- 
American  societies,  received  the  news  with  delight, 
and  cheered  the  drowning  of  American  women  and 
children.  Pacifists,  like  Henry  Ford,  sprang  to  speech, 
assuring  us  we  had  nothing  to  resent.  We  were 
officially  bidden  to  be  calm.  Twelve  months  after 
the  crime  was  committed,  the  American  Rights 
Committee  was  refused  permission  to  hold  a  Me- 
morial meeting  in  New  York.  It  seemed  for  a  time 
as  though  the  dead  were  dishonoured  by  our  indif- 
ference, as  though  Germany  were  right  in  her  calcula- 
tion that  we  would  take  her  blow  kneeling.  Yet  none 
the  less  that  wholesale  and  cowardly  murder  of 
noncombatants  was  her  death-warrant.  Americans 
neither  forgot  nor  forgave.  There  smouldered  in  the 
heart  of  the  nation  a  fire  which  gave  little  out- 
ward token  of  its  intensity,  but  which  slowly  and 
steadily  burned  its  way  to  the  surface,  and  burst 
into  a  flame  that  purified  the  land. 

To  Dr.  White,  this  supreme  act  of  piracy  was  the 
natural  and  inevitable  outcome  of  all  that  had  gone 
before.  When  Dr.  William  H.  Furness  wrote  to  him: 
"Don't  you  believe  that  now,  with  the  sinking  of  the 
Lusitania,  we  can  say,  as  did  my  grandfather  when 
Fort  Sumter  was  fired  on,  'The  long  agony  is  over'?" 
he  had  no  answer  to  give.  The  agony  was  eating  into 


238  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

his  soul.  Every  month  that  Germany  was  suffered  to 
flaunt  her  foulness  in  the  face  of  civilization  was  a 
month  of  painful  endurance.  Like  many  other  Amer- 
icans, he  sought  what  comfort  he  could  find  in  the 
hardest  of  hard  work.  As  the  sailing  of  the  University 
contingent  drew  near,  he  had  no  hour  which  he  could 
rightly  call  his  own;  but  when  he  was  urged  to  pre- 
pare a  new  and  enlarged  edition  of  the  "Primer/* 
which  should  deal  with  more  recent  conditions  and 
events,  he  took  up  the  task,  and  toiled  at  it  day  and 
night  with  that  concentrated  intensity  which  so  per- 
ilously consumed  his  strength. 

The  "Text-Book  of  the  War  for  Americans"  is  a 
closely  printed  volume  of  five  hundred  pages,  show- 
ing signs  of  the  haste  with  which  it  was  compiled, 
and  lacking  the  coherence  of  the  earlier  pamphlet. 
Its  heaped-up  evidence  makes  it  valuable  as  a  book 
of  reference.  Its  transparent  honesty,  the  hatred  for 
cruelty,  and  contempt  for  cowardice,  which  kindled 
every  page,  gave  it  weight  in  that  sad  season  of  doubt 
and  indecision.  It  was  one  of  the  forces  which  helped 
to  strengthen  our  sense  of  moral  obligation,  and 
prompted  us  to  the  great  sacrifice. 

Having  launched  this  last  offensive  against  Ger- 
man barbarism,  Dr.  White's  whole  attention  was 
turned  to  his  approaching  departure.  For  the  first 
time  in  twenty-seven  years  he  was  to  sail  without 
Mrs.  White,  believing  that  conditions  were  too 


THE  GREAT  WAR  239 

dangerous  to  warrant  a  woman's  crossing  the  sea 
unless  she  had  definite  and  useful  work  to  do.  It  was 
a  sane  and  unselfish  decision,  because  he  knew  that 
he  wanted  her  companionship;  but  what  he  did  not 
know  was  how  much  he  was  going  to  want  it  as  the 
solitary  months  sped  by.  To  all  reporters  and  news- 
paper men  he  made  this  clear  statement:  "I  should 
like  it  fully  understood  that  Dr.  James  P.  Hutchin- 
son  is  assuming  the  chief  responsibility  for  operative 
work.  As  a  surgeon,  I  am  now  a  back  number.  More- 
over I  have  tasks  to  do  in  England  this  summer,  and 
at  home  next  autumn.  I  shall  therefore  return  when 
I  have  been  of  all  possible  use,  leaving  the  ward  in 
the  exceptionally  able  hands  of  Dr.  Hutchinson." 

The  surgeons  sailed  June  12th,  on  the  St.  Louis. 
Dr.  White's  diary  bears  testimony  to  the  compre- 
hensive dirt  and  discomfort  of  the  ship,  as  well  as 
to  the  intelligence  and  friendliness  of  the  passengers. 
There  were  several  Canadian  officers  on  board,  and 
they  gave  him  the  benefit  of  their  experiences.  One 
of  them  told  him  he  had  seen  the  body  of  a  two-year- 
old  Belgian  child,  a  little  girl,  pierced  by  a  lance,  and 
hung  naked  on  a  meat-hook  in  a  butcher's  window. 
The  incident  was  no  worse  than  countless  other  in- 
cidents in  Germany's  campaign.  It  was  not  so  bad 
as  many  things  that  happened  daily.  But  Dr.  White 
loved  children,  and  the  image  of  that  little  brutalized 
body,  exposed  as  a  legitimate  joke  to  appreciative 


240  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

German  eyes,  destroyed  his  peace  of  mind.  He  wrote 
about  it  in  a  white  heat  of  grief  and  rage  to  Effingham 
Morris.  He  never  forgot  it  while  he  lived. 

The  week  spent  in  London  was  crowded  with 
social  happenings.  "Of  course  I  had  lots  of  old 
friends  here,"  wrote  the  doctor  to  Provost  Smith, 
"but  now  I  seem  to  have  hundreds  of  new  ones." 
He  lunched  with  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Asquith,  and  warmly 
admired  General  Henderson,  Chief  of  the  British 
Aviation  Corps,  who  was  one  of  the  guests.  He  dined 
with  Anthony  Hope,  and  was  amused,  though  not 
unduly  dazzled,  by  Mr.  Wells.  He  dined  with  Mr. 
Fisher  Unwin,  who  was  publishing  the  English 
edition  of  the  "Text-Book,"  and  spent  a  burning 
hour  in  discussing  the  Lusitania  with  Sir  Sidney  Lee. 
More  happily  he  dined  with  Sargent  and  Henry 
James,  and  the  three  friends  had  what  James  called 
"a  perfect  orgy  of  indiscretion."  Sargent  wrote  to 
Mrs.  White,  assuring  her  he  was  looking  after  her 
"absconding  husband"  to  the  best  of  his  ability, 
though  it  was  no  easy  matter  to  keep  track  of  any 
one  so  popular.  James  wrote  to  her  that  he  also  was 
engaged  in  this  pious  duty,  and  was  fulfilling  it 
"with  a  zeal  and  tenderness  which  you  and  Miss 
Repplier  rolled  into  one  could  n't  surpass.  .  .  .  Wil- 
liam has  done  more  than  he  came  for,"  added  this 
affectionate  chronicler,  "and  his  ability  and  effect 
will  now  be  splendidly  enhanced.  He  is  the  delight 


THE  GREAT  WAR  241 

of  our  circle,  besides  being  that  of  other  circles  in 
which  we  do  not  presume  to  feel  that  we  move." 

Those  were  dark  days  for  the  Allies.  Germany  was 
putting  forth  her  utmost  strength,  and  displaying 
her  utmost  ruthlessness.  Her  arrogance  kept  even 
pace  with  her  resourcefulness.  She  challenged  the 
civilized  world  to  stay  her  hand.  Dr.  White,  temper- 
amentally hopeful,  but  beset  by  heavy  fears,  was 
strengthened  in  spirit  by  this  visit  to  England,  and 
by  the  tenacity  of  purpose  he  beheld  on  every  side. 
He  summed  up  his  convictions  the  night  before  his 
departure  in  the  following  characteristic  paragraph: 

"I  am  leaving  London,  depressed  as  to  the  im- 
mediate outcome  of  the  war,  but  not  as  to  its  final 
results.  The  British  are  still  making  mistakes.  Some 
of  them  —  not  a  few  —  are  hardly  awake  yet  to  their 
own  danger.  But  they  are  all  splendid  in  one  thing. 
They  don't  brag  or  blow  about  it.  They  don't  talk 
about  it  much.  But  they  have  n't  the  slightest  idea 
of  being  beaten  finally.  They  intend  to  win  if  they 
have  to  finish  the  war  ten  years  from  now,  and  alone. 
They  believe  (as  they  have  a  right  to  believe)  hi  the 
justice  of  their  cause.  They  believe  (as  they  have  a 
right  to  believe)  that  they  and  their  Allies  are  fight- 
ing, not  their  own  battles  only,  but  the  battles  of 
every  civilized  nation,  of  every  real  democracy.  They 
think,  though  they  don't  say  it  in  so  many  words, 
that  this  moral  supremacy  over  their  enemies,  this 


242  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

innermost  consciousness  that  they  are  defending 
humanity  at  large,  is  bound  to  have  more  and  more 
weight  as  time  goes  on,  and  that  it  will  sooner  or 
later  become  overwhelming  in  its  influence." 

In  Paris,  Dr.  White  spent  most  of  his  time  at  the 
American  Ambulance  Hospital.  It  was  inevitable 
that  he  should  now  regret  (as  Treves  had  bitterly 
regretted)  his  retirement  from  surgical  practice.  "I 
wish  I  had  n't  stopped  operating  some  years  ago," 
he  wrote  to  Mr.  Edward  B.  Smith.  "I  make  myself 
of  what  use  I  can,  and  I  try  to  preserve  my  self- 
respect  by  remembering  that  I  assumed  at  once  the 
responsibility  for  accepting  the  offer  to  come  over, 
that  I  effected  the  organization,  and  —  with  your 
help  —  the  financing  of  this  unit." 

His  admiration  for  the  bearing  of  the  wounded 
soldiers  was  unbounded.  That  brilliant  playwright, 
Hubert  Henry  Davies,  who  nursed  for  months  in  a 
London  Hospital,  recorded  his  conviction  that  "the 
nearest  thing  on  earth  to  an  angel  is  the  British 
Tommy."  Dr.  White  stood  ready  to  say  as  much  for 
the  Poilu.  "Men  and  officers,"  he  wrote  to  Mr.  Smith, 
"I  never  saw  such  a  cheerful,  contented,  hopeful  lot. 
Some  of  them  shot  half  to  pieces,  but  never  a  grumble 
or  complaint.  It's  wonderful.  Their  chief  anxiety 
seems  to  be  to  get  back  to  the  front  again." 

The  diary  bears  the  same  testimony  to  this  un- 
varying heroism.  "A  finer,  more  uncomplaining, 


THE  GREAT  WAR  243 

more  cheerful  lot  of  men  I  've  never  seen.  They  really 
are  splendid,  and  their  readiness  to  go  back  to  that 
Hell  from  which  they  have  escaped  with  their  bare 
lives  is  amazing." 

The  hospital  itself  satisfied  all  the  requirements  of 
this  exacting  critic.  He  has  nothing  but  praise  for 
surgeons,  doctors,  nurses,  and  attendants.  "I  am 
glad,"  he  wrote,  "to  have  something  that,  as  an 
American,  I  can  be  proud  of.  We  are  now  settled  and 
hard  at  work,  with  a  hundred  and  eighty  to  two  hun- 
dred wounded  in  our  care.  The  organization  of  our 
unit  is  excellent.  I  have  no  fear  but  that  the  results 
will  compare  favourably  with  those  of  preceding 
units." 

To  .Thomas  Robins  he  repeats  the  same  enthu- 
siasms and  the  same  regrets.  "The  hospital  takes  a 
large  part  of  each  day,  though  I  do  no  real  surgical 
work,  and  sometimes  feel  like  a  senile,  decrepit,  dod- 
dering old  ass,  who  ought  to  be  dozing  away  my  last 
days  in  Philadelphia,  instead  of  being  here  where 
everything  is  war,  war,  war.  But  it's^me,  —  and  the 
finest  thing  of  all  is  the  cheerfulness,  and  optimism, 
and  unquenchable  ardour  of  the  poor  fellows  who 
have  been  shot  to  pieces.  They  never  grumble,  and 
they  all  want  to  get  back  to  the  front." 

The  five  Philadelphia  wards,  with  eight  and  ten 
beds  in  each  ward,  gave  him  especial  satisfaction.  He 
has  much  to  say  of  their  inmates.  One  of  them  was  a 


244  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

young  French  surgeon  with  the  rank  of  lieutenant. 
He  had  been  tending  the  wounded  during  a  bombard- 
ment, and  heard  the  groans  of  a  Zouave  lying,  hurt 
and  helpless,  in  No  Man's  Land.  He  called  for  vol- 
unteer stretcher-bearers,  and  went  to  the  rescue 
under  a  Red  Cross  flag,  which  immediately  drew  a 
well-directed  fire  from  the  enemy  (a  Red  Cross  is  to 
a  German  what  a  red  scarf  is  to  a  bull),  with  the  re- 
sult that  the  Zouave  and  the  four  bearers  were  killed, 
and  the  surgeon  badly  wounded.  He  managed  to 
crawl  back  to  shelter,  and  was  then  wearing  the 
croix  de  guerre,  as  a  reward  of  his  fruitless  valour. 

There  were  weekly  entertainments  at  the  hospital 
for  the  amusement  of  convalescents,  and  the  array 
of  talent  they  presented  was  rich  in  variety.  On  one 
occasion  Dr.  White  heard  the  baritone  of  a  Buenos 
Aires  Opera  company,  some  French  actresses  from 
the  Opera  Comique,  and  Anna  Held,  who  sang  "  Tip- 
perary  "  three  times  because  the  wounded  men  could 
not  get  enough  of  it,  but  begged  for  it  again  and 
again. 

When  not  in  the  hospital,  the  doctor  wandered 
about  his  old  haunts  in  Paris,  went  to  some  public 
dinners,  heard  some  amazingly  dull  speeches  (he 
failed  to  understand  how  they  could  be  so  dull  under 
such  circumstances),  and  spent  a  few  happy  hours 
with  Edith  WTiarton.  Their  mutual  affection  for 
Henry  James,  their  mutual  admiration  for  Theodore 


THE  GREAT  WAR  345 

Roosevelt,  gave  them  grounds  for  sympathy;  and  to 
find  his  views  so  keenly  and  comprehensively  shared 
by  this  most  distinguished  of  American  women  was 
a  very  great  delight  to  her  compatriot. 

Two  things  he  ardently  desired,  two  favours  he 
asked  and  obtained.  He  was  permitted  to  make  an 
ascent  in  a  French  military  biplane  (an  experience 
less  common  then  than  now),  and  he  was  permitted 
to  visit  "the  front."  For  the  first  adventure  he  was 
consigned  to  the  care  of  M.  Caudron,  constructeur 
d'aSroplanes,  who  professed  his  pleasure  at  being 
able  to  oblige  so  good  a  friend  of  the  Allies  and  of 
Mr.  Roosevelt.  A  biplane  was  placed  at  his  service,  a 
young  pilot  was  assigned  to  him,  a  heavy  coat,  a  cap 
and  goggles  were  lent  him,  and  in  a  driving  storm  he 
circled  Paris,  and  flew  up  and  down  the  Seine.  "I 
never  did  want  to  be  a  chauffeur,  but  I  certainly 
should  like  to  be  an  aviator,"  he  writes  in  the  diary; 
"and  if  I  could  drop  a  few  bombs  on  the  Rhine 
bridges,  and  the  Krupp  Works,  and  Potsdam,  and 
Unter  den  Linden,  it  would  be  delirious  happiness." 

On  the  20th  of  July  he  visited  Rheims,  then  under 
heavy  bombardment,  and,  as  it  chanced,  he  had  the 
benefit  of  a  particularly  lively  morning.  In  an  hour 
and  a  half,  more  than  five  hundred  shells,  costing  at 
an  easy  estimate  nine  thousand  dollars,  were  rained 
upon  the  town.  "Every  few  seconds  there  would  be 
a  dull  roar,  then  almost  instantly  the  scream  or 


246  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

shriek  of  a  shell  overhead,  and  then  another  closer 
shattering  roar,  as  it  struck  and  exploded.  Some- 
times there  was  no  shriek  between  the  first  —  dis- 
tant —  roar,  and  the  second  —  close  —  one.  This 
meant  that  the  shell  was  a  No.  130  (130  millimetres 
in  diameter)  which  is  the  smallest  the  Huns  usually 
employ,  and  which  goes  at  so  high  a  velocity  that  it 
reaches  its  aim  and  bursts,  before  the  sound  it  makes 
in  the  air  has  time  to  strike  the  ear.  The  150  and  210 
millimetres  do  not  travel  so  fast." 

By  afternoon  the  firing  ceased,  and  Dr.  White  was 
given  an  opportunity  to  see  the  havoc  it  had  wrought. 
The  devastated  Cathedral  had  been,  as  usual,  the 
principal  target  for  the  guns.  The  centre  window  of 
one  of  the  chapels  in  the  apse,  the  third  from  the 
south  transept,  had  been  blown  in.  The  altar  lay 
crumbled  into  fragments.  There  was  a  hole  four  feet 
deep  and  ten  feet  in  diameter  in  the  Cathedral  yard. 
The  buildings  that  surrounded  it  had  sunk  more  com- 
pletely into  ruin.  Throughout  the  city  there  were 
rubble  heaps  that  had  been  homes  at  sunrise.  A 
dozen  townspeople,  most  of  them  women,  lay  dead 
under  humble  roofs.  Nine  thousand  dollars'  worth 
of  frightfulness  had  done  its  appointed  work. 

A  week  later  Dr.  White  went  to  Boulogne,  then  in 
the  war  zone,  where  he  had  permission  to  remain  for 
several  days,  and  where  he  was  the  only  civilian  in 
the  hotel.  The  second  day,  Colonel  Sir  George  Makins 


THE  GREAT  WAR  247 

motored  him  to  St.  Omer,  the  headquarters  of  the 
British  army,  which  was  being  intermittently  shelled, 
and  to  the  Clearing  Hospital,  No.  10  (in  Belgium), 
where  he  saw  some  three  hundred  men  —  shot  and 
burned  —  who  had  been  brought  in  from  the  field 
hospitals  that  morning.  The  desire  of  his  heart  was 
to  get  into  Ypres,  but  there  seemed  little  likelihood 
of  its  fulfilment,  until  by  rare  good  fortune  he  en- 
countered Captain  R.  J.  C.  Thompson,  "ex-football 
player,  ex-officer  in  the  Egyptian  army,  and  a  good 
fellow  without  any  ex,"  who  was  in  command  of  a 
motor  ambulance  convoy,  and  who  promised  that, 
if  the  doctor  would  dine  and  spend  the  night  at  the 
farm  which  was  his  headquarters,  he  would  motor 
him  into  Ypres  at  dusk. 

The  alacrity  with  which  this  offer  was  accepted 
can  be  well  imagined.  It  was  a  "hot  night,"  —  not 
so  registered  by  the  thermometer,  but  in  the  British 
lines,  where  an  attack  upon  the  enemy's  trenches 
was  under  way.  Sir  George  and  Major  Irvine  accom- 
panied Captain  Thompson  and  Dr.  White;  and  the 
party  reached  Ypres  hi  time  to  see  by  the  waning 
light  that  picture  of  uttermost  desolation.  There  were 
ruined  streets,  and  the  battered  walls  of  the  Ca- 
thedral, and  broken  bits  of  masonry  that  had  once 
been  part  of  the  incomparably  beautiful  Cloth  Hall, 
marked  by  the  Germans  (as  they  marked  the  Ca- 
thedral of  Rheims)  for  complete  destruction.  Shells 


248  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

whizzed  above  their  heads,  and  one  of  them  bursting 
perilously  close,  showered  dirt  and  rubble  over  the 
incautious  visitors.  "If  Ypres  ever  again  becomes  a 
city,"  wrote  Dr.  White,  "it  will  have  to  be  rebuilt  as 
completely  as  if  no  town  had  ever  stood  there.  How 
many  hundreds  of  thousands  of  shells  it  took  to 
accomplish  this  demolition,  only  God  and  the  Huns 
know.  They'll  probably  say  they  fired  six  shells  to 
dislodge  a  Belgian  observer  from  the  roof  of  the  Ca- 
thedral." 

After  making  this  melancholy  round,  the  doctor 
was  taken  to  the  nearest  field  hospital,  where  sadder 
sights  awaited  him.  The  fight  was  going  on  between 
Ypres  and  Hooge;  and  all  night  long  came  an  endless 
file  of  wounded  British  soldiers,  some  unconscious 
on  stretchers,  some  hideously  burned  by  liquid  fire 
(Germany's  latest  invention),  some  walking  feebly. 
"One  chap,  who  ought  himself  to  have  been  tenderly 
and  carefully  carried,  had  the  arm  of  another,  worse 
hurt,  around  his  neck,  the  two  of  them  barely  able  to 
crawl."  All  were  indomitable,  uncomplaining,  brave, 
cheerful,  and  grateful.  "Think  of  a  poor  fellow  with 
his  head  bound  up  in  a  blood-stained  bandage,  a 
hand  and  arm  riddled  with  shell  splinters,  his  face 
so  covered  with  clotted  blood  mixed  with  dirt  that 
it  looked  like  a  mask,  —  think  of  that  man  wait- 
ing his  turn  to  be  dressed,  and  actually  grinning  as 
he  said:  'Our  artillery  are  doin'  fine.  They've  got 


THE  GREAT  WAR  249 

the  range  of  their  trenches  to  a  foot.  Every  time  one 
of  our  shells  struck,  I  saw  four  or  five  of  the  swine 
goin'  up  in  the  air,  and  in  pieces,  too.'  —  I  could 
have  kissed  him,  blood  and  dirt  and  all." 

For  hours  and  hours  Dr.  White  stayed  in  that  field 
hospital,  admiring  the  speed  and  precision  with 
which  the  British  surgeons  did  their  work,  the  order 
and  cleanliness  which  reigned  in  such  rough  quarters, 
the  unvarying  heroism  of  the  wounded.  And  every 
hour  his  desire  to  help  grew  stronger.  It  was  dreadful 
to  stand  there  idle,  while  those  other  men,  worn  and 
spent,  saw  the  work  ahead  of  them  exceed  their  ut- 
most powers.  Finally  he  could  bear  it  no  longer,  and 
made  a  tentative  offer  of  his  services.  But  it  might 
not  be.  Even  in  those  cruel  straits,  even  in  that  wel- 
ter of  blood  and  agony,  red  tape  bound  the  official 
world.  Dr.  Hays,  the  surgeon  in  charge,  grinned 
pleasantly.,  but  would  accept  no  aid;  and  Sir  George 
explained  later  that  to  have  done  so  "would  have 
been  subversive  of  discipline  and  a  bad  precedent." 
"I  understand,  and  agree  as  to  principle,"  wrote  Dr. 
White  wistfully;  "but  I  think  that  if  I  could  have 
gotten  to  work,  I  might  have  helped  to  save  some 
lives." 

By  the  4th  of  August  he  was  back  in  London,  and 
attended  the  great  anniversary  service  at  St.  Paul's, 
objecting  characteristically  to  the  sermon  preached 
by  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  because  it  was 


250  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

"mixed  up  with  religion/*  On  the  7th  he  went  to  Sir 
William  Osier's  at  Oxford.  There  was  a  houseful  of 
guests  of  various  nationalities,  but  not  a  neutral  soul 
among  them;  and  the  talk  had  a  quality  of  insight,  and 
a  sustained  intensity  of  feeling,  which  suited  his  own 
angry  and  heroic  mood.  The  only  amusing  thing  he 
had  to  relate  was  a  story  told  him  by  Osier  of  King 
Edward  showing  a  photograph  of  himself  to  Lord 
Salisbury,  and  asking,  "What  do  you  think  of  that? " 
Salisbury,  always  unobservant  and  absent-minded, 
regarded  it  with  a  pitying  eye.  "  Poor  old  Buller !  "  he 
said,  "  I  wonder  if  he  really  is  as  stupid  as  he  looks." 
One  task  Dr.  WTiite  set  himself  to  perform  in  Eng- 
land. Henry  James  had  asked  for  British  citizenship, 
and,  believing  the  matter  to  be  of  no  interest  or 
concern  to  the  public,  had  declined,  save  for  a  few 
lines  to  the  "Times,"  to  give  any  reasons  for  his 
action.  He  would  not  even  discuss  the  subject  among 
friends,  being  always  reticent  about  his  own  af- 
fairs. The  doctor,  however,  felt  that  some  statement 
should  be  made,  and  as  nothing  would  induce  Mr. 
James  to  make  it,  he  valiantly  asked  for  and  ob- 
tained permission  to  send  a  communication  to  the 
"Spectator."  In  this  brief  analysis  he  outlined  the 
events  of  the  past  year,  the  repeated  violation  of 
American  rights  by  Germany,  the  repeated  insults 
and  injuries  suffered  by  Americans  at  the  hands  of  a 
nation  which  took  a  brutal  delight  in  flouting  them. 


THE  GREAT  WAR  251 

It  was,  he  asserted,  no  lack  of  loyalty  to  American 
ideals  which  had  actuated  Mr.  James,  but  a  desire 
to  line  up  with  the  fighting  people,  with  those  who 
were  doing  their  level  best  to  save  an  assaulted  world. 
It  was  his  sense  of  individual  responsibility  in  a  great 
moral  crisis,  when  every  man  must  stand  for  right  or 
wrong.  The  "Spectator"  printed  Dr.  White's  com- 
mentary without  elimination,  and  added  a  line  of  its 
own,  courteous,  temperate,  and  sane.  Sargent  wrote  to 
Mrs.  White  that  he  was  glad  the  word  which  needed 
to  be  said  had  been  well  said.  Mr.  James  maintained 
a  suave  silence.  There  was  no  need  for  him  to  speak. 
On  August  20th  that  venerable  dining-club,  the 
"Kinsmen,"  gave  a  dinner  in  honour  of  Dr.  White,  — 
a  brilliant  affair,  although  the  chairman,  Sir  Sidney 
Lee,  had  forgotten  a  number  of  people  who  should 
have  been  asked,  and  had  given  wrong  dates  to 
others.  The  men  of  letters  who  had  succeeded  in 
being  present  were  full  of  friendly  feeling  for  their 
guest.  There  were  but  three  speeches,  Sir  Sidney's, 
Dr.  White's,  and  a  very  good  one  from  Sir  Alfred 
Keogh,  Surgeon-General  of  the  British  Army.  What- 
ever pleasure  Dr.  White  might  have  had  in  the  enter- 
tainment was  hopelessly  marred  by  the  news  which 
had  just  reached  London  of  the  shameful  sinking  of 
the  Arabic.  She  was  an  unarmed  ship,  westward 
bound,  carrying  civilians  only,  and  no  munitions. 
She  was  torpedoed  without  notice,  and  sank  in  eleven 


253  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

minutes.  Two  Americans  were  reported  to  be  missing. 
What  wonder  that  the  American  who  sat  at  an  Eng- 
lish board  was  heavy  of  heart  and  speech.  His  coun- 
trymen at  home  were  every  whit  as  sorrowful. 

Upon  one  point  he  was  determined.  The  sinking  of 
the  Arabic  should  not  prevent  him  from  returning, 
as  he  had  planned,  on  the  Adriatic.  The  St.  Paul 
sailed  the  same  day;  but,  apart  from  the  fact  that 
his  experience  of  the  St.  Louis  had  inspired  him  with 
a  reasonable  distaste  for  the  American  line,  he  felt 
very  keenly  that  to  change  his  ship  would  be  a  per- 
sonal surrender  of  his  principles,  and  of  his  just  de- 
mands. Mr.  Bryan's  advice  to  Americans,  to  avoid 
the  risk  of  British  vessels,  rankled  in  his  breast.  He 
hated  everything  which  could  be  construed  into  sub- 
mission to  Germany's  insolent  dictates.  "It  seems 
to  me,"  he  writes  in  the  diary,  "that  it  is  now  the 
duty  of  Americans,  if  they  are  unaccompanied  by 
women  and  children,  to  insist  on  the  rights  of  safe 
travel  at  sea  on  merchant  ships.  These  rights  their 
country  should  secure  for  them.  Every  man  who  does 
so  insist  is,  to  that  extent,  an  example  to  others." 

The  Adriatic  would  have  been  a  rich  haul  for  sub- 
marines. Sir  Robert  Borden,  Premier  of  Canada, 
General  Sir  Sam  Hughes,  Minister  of  Militia  and 
Defence,  Sir  Herbert  Holt,  President  of  the  Royal 
Bank  of  Canada,  and  Colonel  Carrick  were  among 
the  passengers.  There  was  also  a  "dear  little  Cana- 


THE  GREAT  WAR  253 

dian  girl  of  three"  for  Dr.  White  to  play  with. 
The  child's  father  was  in  command  of  a  cavalry 
regiment.  Her  baby  brother  and  her  grandmother 
had  been  lost  on  the  Lusitania.  With  such  com- 
panions, and  with  the  creature  comforts  which,  it 
must  be  confessed,  the  doctor  valued  highly,  the 
voyage  was  a  singularly  agreeable  one.  He  was  glad 
to  be  nearing  home.  The  summer  had  been  brimful 
of  honours  and  adventures  ("bombarded  towns,  and 
toppling  houses,  and  shells  blazing  all  around  me 
were  new  and  thrilling  experiences,"  he  wrote  to 
Edward  Smith) ;  but  there  had  also  been  lonely  hours 
in  which  he  knew  too  well  what  was  wanting.  The 
last  page  of  his  London  diary  contains  a  candid,  and 
most  unusual,  avowal  of  error. 

"I  made  one  mistake,  —  not  bringing  Letty  with 
me.  Against  it,  however,  must  be  urged  her  freedom 
from  all  risk  —  especially  now  —  and  also  the  oppor- 
tunities I've  had  (which  her  affection  might  have 
prevented)  of  learning  much  from  actual  experience, 
which  ought  to  make  me  able  to  think  straighter, 
write  better,  and  altogether  be  more  useful  to  the 
cause  as  long  as  the  war  continues.  That  helps  to 
balance  the  account,  though  it  does  n't  console  me 
in  hours  like  these  for  her  absence.  If  I  had  realized 
how  much  I  should  miss  her,  I'd  have  let  her  take 
all  the  risks  and  come  along.  So  there's  a  frank  con- 
fession of  having,  for  once,  been  wrong." 


CHAPTER  XH 

THE  END 

"¥  TI  THEN  Dr.  White  returned  from  this  exciting 
V  V  and  exhausting  summer,  he  was,  though  he 
did  not  know  it,  an  ill  man.  He  was  not  prepared  to 
make  any  concession  to  his  increasing  weakness  and 
pain.  He  attributed  them  to  fatigue,  to  exposure,  to 
prolonged  immersion  in  his  swimming-pool  during 
the  warm  September  days,  to  rheumatism,  to  neu- 
ralgia, to  any  and  everything  except  the  ineradica- 
ble disease  which  his  physicians  recognized,  but  were 
unwilling  to  name.  His  courage  was  undaunted,  his 
energies  unclogged.  It  seems  grotesque  that,  after 
his  great  experiences  in  Europe,  his  months  of  high 
adventure,  he  should  have  been  immediately  en- 
gulfed by  an  academic  tempest  which  attracted  more 
attention  than  it  deserved,  and  consumed  more  time 
and  strength  than  should  have  been  wasted  upon 
it.  But  anything  to  be  done  for  the  University  of 
Pennsylvania  was  to  him  worth  doing,  and  the  Uni- 
versity had  involved  itself  in  a  particularly  lively 
row  by  summarily  dismissing  an  instructor  in  the 
Wharton  School  of  Finance,  on  the  charge  of  in- 
cendiary language  to  his  students. 

The  incident  gamed  importance  from  the  fact  that 


THE  END  255 

faculties  and  alumni  all  over  the  country  were  sharply 
resenting  the  arbitrary  measures  of  college  presidents 
and  trustees.  The  University  was  accused  of  sup- 
pressing academic  freedom  of  speech.  All  the  space 
in  Philadelphia  papers,  which  was  not  taken  up  by 
war  news,  was  given  over  to  earnest  colloquies  upon 
this  little  local  cause  cSlebre.  The  New  York  press 
devoted  august  attention  to  the  matter.  The  "Trib- 
une" opined  that  scant  confidence  could  be  placed 
in  the  sincerity  of  a  college  which  sought  to  muzzle 
its  teachers.  The  "New  Republic"  likened  Dr.  Scott 
Nearing  (the  inflammatory  instructor)  to  Martin 
Luther,  nailing  his  thesis  to  the  church  door.  The 
"Sun,"  always  inclined  to  skepticism,  pointed  out 
that,  while  the  telling  of  unwelcome  truths  is  right 
and  praiseworthy,  the  presentation,  as  truths,  of 
points  which  are  open  to  doubt,  is  less  deserving  of 
esteem.  "Life"  was  of  the  opinion  that  a  salaried 
official  is  bound  by  the  conditions  of  his  employment, 
and  that  a  man  who  desires  untrammelled  liberty  of 
speech  ought  not  to  hire  himself  out  to  an  organized 
institution  with  a  responsible  directorate. 

Echoes  of  this  commotion  had  reached  Dr.  White 
in  Paris,  and  he  confided  both  to  his  diary  and  to 
Thomas  Robins  that  the  episode  was  assuming  "pre- 
posterous proportions."  He  doubted  the  wisdom  of 
the  dismissal,  and  he  doubted  the  wisdom  of  the 
dismissed.  When  he  returned  home,  and  was  called 


256  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D/, 

upon  to  defend  his  assaulted  Alma  Mater,  he  found 
himself  in  a  curious  and  difficult  position.  He  was, 
and  he  had  been  all  his  life,  enamoured  of  free  speech. 
He  was,  and  he  had  been  all  his  life,  intolerant  of 
foolish  talk.  He  had  no  respect  for  orthodoxy,  but  a 
great  deal  for  the  settled  order  of  society.  He  loved 
bold  and  outspoken  views,  but  he  valued  common 
sense  above  all  things.  It  was  a  divided  allegiance. 

For  these  reasons,  perhaps,  there  is  an  unwonted 
gentleness  in  his  vindication  of  the  trustees,  pub- 
lished in  the  "Old  Penn  Weekly  Review."  Like 
Carlyle,  he  was  always  disposed  to  stand  for  men 
rather  than  for  measures;  but  he  recognized  that 
many  of  Dr.  Nearing's  adherents  stood  for  measures 
rather  than  for  men.  With  them  it  was  a  matter  of 
abstract  principle,  and  they  were  wholly  indifferent 
to  the  man  who  represented  the  principle  they  up- 
held. With  him  it  was  a  matter  of  practical  expe- 
diency, and  all  that  concerned  him  was  the  fitness 
or  unfitness  of  this  particular  man  to  be  a  teacher  of 
youth. 

Dr.  Nearing  had  announced  that,  having  served 
three  weeks  on  a  jury,  he  had  left  the  panel  with  his 
faith  in  courts  and  the  law  "utterly  destroyed."  This 
was  to  Dr.  White  a  matter  of  no  moment.  He  did  not 
care  a  rap  what  Dr.  Nearing  believed  or  disbelieved, 
nor  by  what  process  of  elimination  he  had  reached 
his  conclusions;  but  he  objected  to  the  immature 


THE  END  257 

student  mind  being  muddled  with  crude  revolution- 
ism on  the  strength  of  this  somewhat  inconclusive 
evidence.  Dr.  Nearing's  hostility  to  "private  wealth" 
neither  interested  nor  repelled  him;  but  he  failed  to 
see  its  place,  as  a  basis  for  instruction,  in  a  School 
of  Finance. 

The  paper  of  ten  thousand  words,  in  which  Dr. 
White  analyzed  and  defended  the  action  of  the  trus- 
tees, was  the  last  piece  of  sustained  work  he  ever  did. 
Dr.  Nearing  was  called  to  the  University  of  Toledo, 
where  he  had  a  brief  and  stormy  career.  The  entrance 
of  the  United  States  into  the  war  tested  him,  as  it 
tested  better  men,  and  proved  of  what  metal  he  was 
made.  He  was  indicted  under  the  Espionage  Act  for 
obstructing  government  measures.  The  ranks  of  pro- 
German  pacifism  opened  to  receive  him,  and  in  its 
friendly  arms  he  found  his  comfort  and  support. 

Throughout  the  autumn,  letters  and  reviews 
praising  the  English  edition  of  the  "Text-Book'* 
followed  Dr.  White  over  the  sea.  The  "Spectator" 
said  truly  that  its  author  was,  if  not  a  leader,  at  least 
a  "challenger  of  opinion."  Lord  Sydenham,  who  still 
cherished  the  generous  vision  of  good  Germans,  un- 
tainted by  militarism,  dwelling  in  some  unknown 
corner  of  the  Fatherland,  wrote  that  he  hoped  these 
blameless  anchorites  would  read  the  "Text-Book," 
and  be  enlightened.  Mr.  James's  congratulations 
related  chiefly  to  the  safe  passage  of  the  Adriatic, 


258  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

which  had  relieved  his  heart  of  a  heavy  load  of  care. 
"I  see,"  he  wrote,  "the  glory  of  your  return  only 
bedimmed  a  little  by  damnably  dreary  things;  the 
Arabic,  the  Hesperian,  the  offensive  ass  of  a  Dumba, 
and  the  so  zealously  co-operating  knave  of  a  Bern- 
storff." 

At  home,  Dr.  White  was  called  upon  so  often  to 
gratify  public  curiosity  that  he  lived  his  life  in  a 
state  of  perpetual  siege.  Moreover,  the  Great  War 
had  brought  to  him,  as  to  thousands  of  his  country- 
men, new  sets  of  sympathies  and  estrangements;  it 
had  made  and  unmade  friendships  and  enmities. 
Nothing  seemed  the  same,  because  nothing  was  the 
same,  while  Europe  rocked  in  the  blast.  Social  inter- 
course was  dominated  by  this  overwhelming  fact.  No 
other  points  of  agreement  or  disagreement  counted 
in  the  scale. 

Two  years  before  the  war,  Dr.  WTiite,  indignant  at 
"Life's"  travesties  of  the  medical  profession,  and  at 
its  insistent  vilification  of  Colonel  Roosevelt,  —  whom 
it  always  pursued  hi  a  spirit  of  sustained  hostility,  — 
dropped  his  subscription,  and  refused  to  allow  the 
paper  to  enter  his  house.  He  wrote  to  the  editors  a 
frank  and  not  unfriendly  letter,  giving  them  his  rea- 
sons for  this  step,  and  also  his  reasons  for  telling 
them  why  he  took  it.  "I  do  not  suppose,"  he  said, 
"that  either  my  subscription  or  my  opinion  is  of 
any  importance  to  you;  but  I  have  a  feeling  of  regard 


THE  END  259 

for  'Life'  which  leads  me,  in  parting  from  it,  to  make 
some  explanation,  as  I  should  do  if  —  for  what  ap- 
peared to  me  a  good  cause  —  I  decided  to  drop  the 
acquaintance  of  a  man  who  had  once  been  a  friend." 

"Life"  published  this  letter  with  the  following 
graceful  comment:  "On  the  contrary,  the  loss  of  an 
intelligent  reader  is  always  important  to  'Life,'  and 
doubly  important  when  we  lose  an  old  friend  be- 
cause of  a  difference  of  opinion." 

The  years  sped  by,  and  the  war  was  fourteen 
months  old  when  Dr.  White  wrote  again  to  "Life," 
asking  that  the  quarrel  should  be  made  up.  The 
paper's  courageous  unneutrality,  its  defence  of  hu- 
man and  civilized  justice,  its  unremitting  attacks 
upon  German  propaganda,  had  won  his  heart. 
"Life,"  he  said,  might  continue  to  call  doctors 
quacks,  and  Colonel  Roosevelt  an  impostor.  He 
would  summon  his  philosophy,  and  utter  no  word  of 
protest.  He  would  remain,  even  under  such  provo- 
cation, its  enthusiastic  admirer,  and  its  grateful 
debtor.  He  asked  humbly  to  be  restored  to  the  sub- 
scription list.  After  all,  what  did  anything  matter 
save  the  supreme  struggle  between  right  and  wrong 
on  the  battle-fields  of  Europe? 

This  letter  established  the  last  friendship  of  his  life. 
Mr.  Edward  Sandford  Martin  answered  it  at  length, 
admitting  his  own  share  of  guilt,  but  claiming  abso- 
lution, because  events  had  remodelled  his  standards, 


260  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

as  they  had  remodelled  the  standards  of  many  honest 
men.  All  the  staff  of  "Life,"  he  said,  were  wild  with 
enthusiasm  over  France  (the  paper's  editorials  had 
proved  this  much),  and  all  were  ready  for  war.  They 
were  even  then  planning  the  famous  "John  Bull" 
number,  —  a  heartfelt,  humorous,  noble  tribute  to 
Britain's  matchless  valour.  Mr.  Martin's  unshaken 
belief  that  the  war  would  end,  not  only  aright,  but 
so  very  well  as  to  have  been  worth  its  cost,  was  a 
tonic  to  Dr.  White's  mind,  and  balm  to  his  soul. 
There  was  a  power  of  vision  in  Mr.  Martin  which 
strengthened  many  minds  and  souls.  Saint  Michael 
could  no  more  have  doubted  his  final  victory  over 
Lucifer,  Saint  George  could  no  more  have  doubted 
his  final  victory  over  the  dragon,  than  this  New  York 
gentleman  could  have  doubted  the  final  victory  of 
France  and  Britain  over  Germany.  "This  is  a  world 
of  promise  beyond  all  the  promise  of  a  thousand 
years,"  he  wrote  prophetically;  "a  world  in  which 
whoever  is  strong  in  the  faith  may  hope  everything 
that  saints  foresaw,  or  martyrs  died  to  bring." 

All  this  time  Dr.  White  was  raising  money  for  the 
Philadelphia  Wards  of  the  American  Ambulance 
Hospital,  and  all  this  time  he  was  fighting  the  disease 
which  manifested  itself  more  pitilessly  day  by  day. 
He  lingered  in  the  country  until  November,  and  was 
then  brought  back  to  town,  the  wreck  of  his  old  gay, 
dominant  self.  By  the  close  of  the  month  a  second 


THE  END  361 

sum  of  fifteen  thousand  dollars  had  been  sent  to 
Paris.  "Let  me  take  this  opportunity,"  he  said  in  his 
announcement,  "of  reiterating  and  emphasizing  my 
former  statement,  made  after  weeks  of  personal  ob- 
servation of  the  workings  of  the  hospital,  —  namely, 
that  no  money  sent  from  America  to  relieve  suffering, 
and  to  aid  the  cause  of  the  Allies,  does  more  good 
than  that  contributed  to  this  institution.  It  is  so 
efficiently  and  economically  managed  that,  with  a 
progressive  decrease  in  the  per  capita  expenses, 
there  is  a  corresponding  increase  in  the  care  and  at- 
tention given  to  the  wounded,  and  in  the  comforts 
supplied  to  them. 

"It  is,  moreover,  the  most  conspicuously  useful  of 
the  attempts  that  America  has  made  to  repay  in 
some  slight  measure  the  debt  of  gratitude  which  she 
incurred  to  France  more  than  a  century  ago." 

In  December,  Dr.  White  was  taken  to  the  Uni- 
versity Hospital.  Here  he  spent  his  Christmas;  and 
on  Christmas  eve,  while  he  was  under  treatment  in 
the  laboratory,  his  friends  invaded  his  room,  and  set 
up  a  tree  hung  with  gifts,  droll,  fanciful,  charming, 
as  the  taste  of  the  donors  prompted.  Miss  Marian 
Smith,  the  superintendent  of  the  hospital,  lent  her 
affectionate  co-operation  to  the  scheme.  Everything 
had  to  be  done  in  haste,  for  the  time  was  short.  Every- 
thing was  ready  before  the  invalid  returned.  Fruits 
and  flowers  and  books  and  boxes  were  heaped  up  in 


262  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

the  big,  spare  hospital  room.  The  tree,  with  its  loving 
remembrances,  towered  to  the  ceiling.  The  decorators 
assumed  a  gaiety  they  did  not  feel.  When  the  last 
touch  had  been  given,  Mrs.  White  glanced  around 
the  pretty,  glittering  scene,  and  said  sadly:  "If 
friends  could  cure." 

With  the  New  Year  came  the  last  determined 
effort  of  a  resolute  life,  the  last  flicker  of  the  flame 
which  was  burning  low  in  a  wasted  body.  Colonel 
Roosevelt  was  expected  to  speak  in  Philadelphia, 
January  21st,  on  the  stern  necessity  of  military  pre- 
paredness; and  Dr.  White  announced  his  intention 
of  being  taken  home,  and  of  receiving  the  Colonel  as 
his  guest.  It  seemed  sheerly  impossible,  but  his  mind 
was  made  up.  The  house  on  the  Square  was  opened 
wide,  as  in  the  old  happy  days.  Its  master,  showing 
no  sign  of  his  mortal  illness,  lay  on  a  couch  in  the 
library,  welcoming  his  visitors,  and  watching  with 
the  clear  eyes  of  unalterable  devotion  the  friend  who 
had  been  his  beacon  light  through  life.  Political  ani- 
mosities were  buried  deep  that  day,  for  no  one  who 
knew  and  loved  the  sick  man  failed  to  respond  to 
this,  his  last  call  on  their  regard.  I  remember  Colonel 
Roosevelt  saying:  "It  would  have  seemed  strange  to 
me  to  come  to  any  other  house  than  this";  and  Dr. 
WTiite  replying:  "It  is  a  house  of  pain,  but  it  is  always 
yours." 

So  absolutely  did  strength  of  purpose  triumph 


THE  END  263 

over  bodily  infirmity,  that  to  some  of  us  it  seemed  as 
though  the  sufferer  had  renewed  his  hopes  and  his 
vigour  in  this  brief  contact  with  the  world.  Before 
the  strange  buoyancy  had  faded,  he  wrote  to  Effing- 
ham  Morris:  "I  think  the  Colonel's  visit  has  really 
done  me  good.  After  his  speech,  he  returned  here 
immediately,  and  we  had  a  talk  until  12.45  A.M.  He 
spent  another  hour  with  me  before  he  went  to  the 
Montgomery  luncheon.  I  can  scarcely  expect  you  to 
see  him  through  my  spectacles;  but  he  is  one  of  the 
very  best.  The  afternoon  was  for  me  a  great  success, 
and  your  cheerful  and  affectionate  presence  was  by 
no  means  the  smallest  factor  in  it." 

After  Colonel  Roosevelt's  visit,  Dr.  White  never 
again  left  his  bed-room;  but  his  interest  in  all  that 
appertained  to  his  friends,  his  profession,  the  Uni- 
versity, and  the  war,  remained  unimpaired  through- 
out the  winter.  He  wrote  a  self-forgetful  letter  to 
the  alumni  of  Pennsylvania's  Medical  School,  on  the 
occasion  of  their  annual  dinner,  regretting  his  inabil- 
ity to  be  with  them: 

"I  do  not  forget  that  among  my  most  pleasant  and 
cherished  memories  are  the  hours  I  have  spent  in  the 
company  of  men  whom  you  will  have  at  table  to- 
night. I  should  find  among  them  former  co-workers 
in  every  department  of  University  activity,  and  es- 
pecially in  the  department  closest  to  our  hearts  — 
the  Medical  School  —  which  came  to  us  with  a 


264  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

reputation,  a  distinction,  a  history,  that  entitled  it 
to  our  devoted  services. 

"Unimportant  as  my  personal  share  in  this  work 
has  been,  it  had  for  me  the  inestimable  advantage  of 
throwing  me  into  close  and  intimate  contact  with 
successive  circles  of  University  men,  and  led  to  the 
formation  of  changing,  but  always  enlarging,  groups 
of  very  dear  friends,  with  whom,  in  one  way  or  an- 
other, a  close  and  affectionate  relationship  was 
established,  and  has  continued  ever  since.  To  these 
friends,  —  former  students,  fellow  alumni,  faculty 
brothers,  and  to  all  the  boys,  I  send  my  best  wishes 
for  a  successful  and  hilarious  reunion,  and  my  con- 
gratulations on  the  present  abounding  health  and 
prosperity  of  our  Alma  Mater." 

Dr.  John  Mitchell  read  this  letter  to  the  diners, 
and  wrote  to  Dr.  White  that  it  would  have  done  his 
heart  good  to  have  heard  the  cheers  which  greeted 
it.  Three  weeks  later,  on  University  Day,  came  the 
annual  dinner  of  the  General  Alumni  Society,  an- 
other gathering  which  he  had  been  wont  to  love,  and 
to  which  his  mind  strayed  longingly.  That  he  was 
not  forgotten  is  shown  by  this  line  from  Mr.  Horace 
Lippincott: 

DEAR  DR.  WHITE: 

The  large  and  enthusiastic  body  of  alumni,  gath- 
ered together  for  their  annual  dinner  on  the  evening 


THE  END  265 

of  University  Day,  heard  with  distress  the  news  which 
the  Provost  brought  them  of  your  suffering.  Stilled 
by  the  recital,  they  rose  to  their  feet  when  he  had 
finished,  and  broke  into  three  long  hurrahs  for  you. 
It  was  decided  by  acclamation  to  send  you  our  greet- 
ing, and  our  sincere  hopes  for  your  speedy  recovery. 
It  is  my  privilege  to  write  you  this  with  the  heartiest 
and  best  wishes  of  your  fellow  alumni. 

From  England  came  loving  letters,  —  cheerful,  op- 
timistic letters  from  Sargent,  and  Lord  Sydenham, 
and  Mr.  Arthur  Potter,  who  could  not  be  brought  to 
believe  that  their  friend  was  near  to  death;  troubled 
letters  from  Osier  and  Treves,  who  knew,  or  divined, 
the  truth.  "There  is  something  unusual  in  having 
to  write  to  you  with  a  bedside  manner,"  grumbled 
Sargent;  "instead  of  hurling  jokes  at  you,  —  jokes 
that  I  warn  you  are  merely  delayed  until  a  terror 
treatment  is  prescribed."  "You  must  cheer  up," 
wrote  Mr.  Potter  affectionately.  "We  want  you  to 
rejoice  with  us  in  our  final  victory,  as  you  have  helped 
us  in  our  hour  of  need." 

From  one  friend,  Dr.  White  was  never  to  hear 
again.  Henry  James  lay  very  ill  hi  London,  his  keen 
mind  dimmed,  his  eager  spirit  groping  in  the  dark. 
The  English  Government  had  conferred  upon  him 
the  Order  of  Merit,  and  Lord  Bryce  carried  it  to  his 
bedside  on  New  Year's  Day.  Happily,  the  sick  man 


266  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

was  fully  conscious  of  the  honour  done  him.  "He 
knew  his  old  friends,'*  wrote  Miss  Emily  Sargent 
to  Dr.  White,  "  and  said  a  few  words  of  thanks  and 
appreciation,  quite  in  his  old  style.  We  are  so  very 
glad  he  could  grasp  and  enjoy  this  pleasure." 

Osier,  writing  a  few  days  later,  expressed  the  same 
generous  satisfaction  in  this  final  recognition  of  great 
qualities.  "Was  it  not  splendid  that  they  gave  Henry 
James  the  O.M.,  —  really  the  highest  literary  dis- 
tinction in  England?  Everybody  is  delighted.  Mrs. 
Asquith  was  asking  for  you  the  other  day.  Your 
martial  spirit  made  a  great  impression  upon  those 
politicians.  I  wish  you  and  Roosevelt  were  in  the 
Cabinet.  This  house  is  still  a  junk  shop.  A  hundred 
and  ninety  barrels  of  apples,  and  two  thousand  dollars, 
came  to  Grace  at  Christmas  from  Canada  and  the 
United  States.  We  had  the  house  full  of  men  from 
the  front,  chiefly  relatives.  Eighteen  members  of  my 
family  are  serving." 

In  February,  Henry  James  died.  His  death  was  a 
signal  for  a  renewed  attack  upon  him  on  the  score  of 
his  renunciation  of  American  citizenship.  Again  Dr. 
White  came  to  his  friend's  defence.  In  grave  and 
measured  words  he  repelled  the  flippant  insinuations 
of  critics  who  betrayed  more  irritation  than  they 
would  confess  to  cherishing.  His  letter  to  the  "  Phila- 
delphia Ledger  "  had  in  it  a  quiet  depth  of  feeling,  a 
sincere  and  sorrowful  understanding  of  the  situation. 


THE  END  267 

He  at  least  knew  that  no  man  was  more  passionately 
loyal  than  Mr.  James  to  the  ideals  which  the  United 
States,  in  common  with  all  free  and  democratic 
countries,  stood  pledged  to  cherish  and  support.  He 
knew  that  it  was  the  great  novelist's  cheerful  and 
unvarying  acceptance  of  all  the  responsibilities  of 
life  which  made  it  hard  for  him  to  retain,  among  old 
associates,  and  in  the  face  of  Germany's  threats,  the 
safety  and  privileges  of  a  neutral  citizen. 

Mr.  James's  death  was  the  last  break  in  Dr. 
White's  circle  of  intimate  associates.  He  felt  it 
acutely,  though  he  knew  that  his  own  end  was  near. 
For  eleven  years  these  two  men  had  been  firm  and 
happy  friends.  They  were  as  unlike  as  men  could  be. 
The  "rude  imperious  surge"  and  the  deep  land- 
locked lake  could  offer  no  greater  contrast.  "I  am 
such  a  votary  and  victim  of  the  single  impression, 
of  the  imperceptible  adventure,  picked  up  by  acci- 
dent, and  cherished,  as  it  were,  in  secret,"  wrote 
James  to  Dr.  White  in  the  spring  of  1914,  "that  your 
scale  of  operation  and  sensation  would  be  for  me  the 
most  choking,  the  most  fatal  of  programmes,  and  I 
should  simply  go  ashore  at  Sumatra,  and  refuse  ever 
to  fall  in  line  again.  But  that  is  simply  my  contempt- 
ible capacity,  which  does  n't  want  a  little  of  five 
million  things,  but  only  asks  three  or  four,  as  to 
which,  I  confess,  my  requirements  are  inordinate." 

It  was  the  war  which  showed  how  closely  akin  in 


268  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

elemental  qualities,  in  all  the  attributes  which  make 
for  simple,  self-sustaining  manhood,  were  these  con- 
trasting types.  To  no  heart  did  this  titanic  struggle 
strike  more  deeply  than  to  Mr.  James's,  and  to  no 
mind,  outside  of  diplomatic  circles,  was  it  given  to 
see  more  clearly  its  true  and  final  issues.  He  was  not 
eager  to  beckon  his  own  country  into  the  combat; 
but  he  knew  that,  in  the  end,  there  could  be  no 
escape  from  the  "bitter-sweet  cup";  and  he  knew, 
too,  being  an  American,  that,  when  it  was  once  pre- 
sented to  our  lips,  we  should  drain  it  to  the  dregs. 
His  spirits  were  not  buoyant  enough  to  bear  the 
burden  of  grief;  but  the  breadth  of  his  human  sym- 
pathy, the  depth  of  his  exhaustless  compassion,  were 
a  revelation  to  the  world.  In  this  regard,  he  and  Dr. 
White  were  indivisible.  The  counsel,  old  as  life  and 
base  as  sin, 

"Let  us  endure  awhile,  and  see  injustice  done," 

carried  no  persuasion  to  their  souls.  They  knew  their 
helplessness;  but  there  was  not  in  the  life  of  either 
one  minute  of  cowardly  acquiescence. 

The  near  approach  of  death  was  powerless  to  dull 
Dr.  White's  human  interests,  to  weaken  his  affec- 
tions, to  moderate  his  just  resentments.  On  the  3d 
of  March,  less  than  two  months  before  his  death,  he 
sent  the  following  characteristic  letter  to  Provost 
Smith : 


THE  END  269 

DEAR  EDGAR: 

I  have  received  a  book  by  David  Starr  Jordan, 
which,  I  regret  to  say,  bears  the  imprint  and  motto 
of  the  University  of  Pennsylvania.  I  think  it  a  dis- 
grace to  the  University  to  have  the  work  of  such  a 
man  published  under  its  patronage. 

I  am  not  yet  aware  whether  or  not  he  was  invited 
to  give  this  lecture.  I  suppose,  if  he  were,  it  was  in- 
cumbent upon  us,  under  the  terms  of  the  Founda- 
tion, to  publish  it.  But  if  the  date  of  his  invitation 
was  later  than  eighteen  months  ago,  I  shall  be  ready 
to  vote  for  a  censorship. 

A  man  who,  writing  to-day,  could  put,  as  the  first 
of  the  duties  now  before  the  world,  the  keeping  of 
Americans  out  of  the  "Brawl  in  the  Dark,  in  which 
Europe  is  bleeding  to  death,"  with  no  mention  of 
the  paramount  duty  of  trying  by  every  possible 
means  to  see  that,  as  a  result  of  the  "brawl,"  might 
does  not  triumph  over  right,  or  barbarity  over  civi- 
lization, is  not  entitled  to  speak  before  a  University 
audience,  or  to  have  what  he  says  published  by  a 
University.  I  regard  him  as  one  of  the  most  mis- 
chievous and  harmful  of  the  pacifist  agitators. 

It  was  Professor  Jordan  who  ventured  to  say  in  a 
college  commencement  address,  given  in  the  sum- 
mer of  1909:  "France  is,  by  its  own  admission,  deca- 
dent." The  remark  was  considered  even  then  to  be 


270  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

in  questionable  taste,  and  of  questionable  accuracy. 
The  events  of  the  past  five  years  have  proved  it  as 
false  as  it  was  foul.  "War,"  says  M.  Halevy,  "speaks 
with  authority.  It  lays  the  foundations  of  history.  It 
consecrates  and  dominates  it  forever." 

On  the  18th  of  March,  less  than  six  weeks  before  his 
death,  Dr.  White  sent  his  last  letter  to  Effingham 
Morris.  Throughout  the  long  months  of  his  illness 
—  longer  they  seemed  to  him  than  all  the  vigor- 
ous years  that  had  preceded  them  —  he  had  shared 
with  this  friend  the  hopes  he  could  not  relinquish, 
and  the  doubts  that  beset  his  soul.  "WTien  the  pain 
is  bad,  I  know  I  am  as  ill  as  ever.  In  the  blessed 
moments  when  I  am  out  of  pain,  I  think  I  am  going 
to  get  well  in  a  couple  of  weeks.  And  so  it  goes." 

All  hope  was  dead  when  he  wrote  for  the  last  time, 
and  his  concern  was  not  then  for  himself,  but  for  a 
young  physician  whom  he  liked  and  trusted,  and 
for  whom  he  sought  a  post  on  the  visiting  staff  of 
the  Presbyterian  Hospital.  Enclosed  with  this  letter 
was  a  more  formal  communication,  addressed  to  the 
Board  of  Managers  of  the  Hospital,  in  which  he  set 
forth  with  all  his  old  energy,  and  with  more  than 
his  old  kindness,  Dr.  Carnett's  fitness  for  the  ap- 
pointment. The  shadow  of  death  fell  across  his  bed 
when  he  made  this  brave  effort  to  help  a  man  whose 
life  lay  bright  before  him;  yet  in  April  he  roused 
himself  to  write  twice  again.  The  first  letter  was 


THE  END  271 

to  Provost  Smith,  urging  him  to  interest  himself  in 
Dr.  Carnett's  behalf,  and  ended  with  these  pregnant 
words:  "I  really  want  you  to  do  this  for  me,  and  at 
this  juncture  shall  make  no  excuse  for  not  doing  more 
myself." 

The  second  letter  was  to  Mr.  Samuel  Rea,  and  its 
dictation  must  have  cost  the  dying  man  a  great  and 
painful  effort: 

"I  have  just  heard,  in  reference  to  the  candidacy 
of  my  friend,  Dr.  J.  B.  Carnett,  for  the  surgical 
vacancy  of  the  Presbyterian  Hospital,  that  he  has 
been  handicapped  by  the  statement,  widely  made, 
that  Pennsylvania  Railroad  influences  have  been 
lined  up  in  his  behalf  through  my  individual  efforts, 
and  that  they  are  not  to  be  taken  at  their  face  value 
as  testimony  to  Carnett's  real  ability,  experience,  and 
general  fitness  for  the  place. 

"I  write  at  once  to  call  attention  to  the  impropri- 
ety of  this  attitude  so  far  as  I  am  concerned.  As  the 
Pennsylvania  Railroad  has  done  me  the  honour  of 
giving  me  an  important  position  on  its  staff,  and  of 
accepting  my  judgment  in  many  surgical  matters,  it 
is  apparent  that  its  directors  think  enough  of  my 
knowledge  and  experience  to  justify  the  expectation 
that  they  would  also  value  my  opinion  of  the  work, 
professional  character,  and  standing  of  a  man  brought 
up  under  my  own  eye,  and  whose  career  I  have 
watched  with  especial  interest  and  attention." 


272  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

Nine  days  after  writing  this  letter,  Dr.  White  died. 
He  had  suffered  such  appalling  pain,  he  was  so  worn 
and  so  profoundly  helpless,  that  those  who  loved 
him  best  were  least  desirous  to  prolong  that  brave 
and  broken  life.  To  the  end  he  was  keen  to  see  his  old 
associates,  and  to  hear  news  of  the  world  which  was 
slipping  fast  away  from  him.  Every  morning,  Tom 
Robins,  his  brother,  and  his  cousin,  Sam  White,  the 
unchanging  friend  of  his  boyhood  and  his  youth, 
came  to  his  bedside,  and  brought  some  breath  of  a 
happier  life.  Every  day,  as  the  end  drew  near,  Dr. 
Alfred  Wood,  Dr.  Martin,  and  Dr.  Stengel  issued 
bulletins  which  were  posted  in  the  vestibule  of  his 
home,  and  read  by  throngs  of  anxious  visitors.  At 
the  close,  pneumonia  intervened,  and  death  came 
mercifully  to  the  man  who  had  waited  for  it  so  long, 
and  whose  only  hope  lay  in  its  healing  hand. 

Dr.  WTiite  died  in  a  time  of  supreme  national  de- 
pression. He  had  seen  nearly  two  years  of  war,  and 
every  month  had  brought  fresh  evidence  of  Germany's 
cruelty  in  Europe,  her  treachery  in  the  United  States, 
her  ruthlessness  (punctuated  by  broken  promises  and 
suave  explanations)  on  the  seas,  her  profound  and 
brutal  contempt  for  the  laws  of  civilized  nations. 
He  had  lived  through  the  period  when  cranks  of 
every  description  proposed  ingenious  —  and  blood- 
less—  plans  for  bringing  the  struggle  to  an  end; 
when  delegations  of  children  .were  sent  to  Washing- 


THE  END  273 

ton,  to  ask  the  President  to  keep  us  out  of  war; 
when  every  fresh  outrage  was  met  by  fresh  apologists. 
There  were,  indeed,  Americans  of  a  different  type, 
men  who  never  consented  to  neutrality,  who  never 
believed  that  a  purifying  ocean  cleansed  them  from 
all  sense  of  human  obligation.  In  December,  1914, 
Mr.  James  M.  Beck,  speaking  before  the  New  Eng- 
land Society  of  New  York,  urged  that  the  United 
States  should  call  a  conference  of  the  neutral  powers, 
and  voice  a  protest  which  would  have  stayed  Ger- 
many's bloody  hand.  "But  I  confess,"  wrote  this 
great  lawyer  to  me,  "that  I  did  not  advocate  a 
declaration  of  war  by  the  United  States  until  after 
the  Lusitania  was  sunk.  Dr.  White  did.  And  as  this 
subjected  him  to  a  storm  of  ridicule  at  the  time,  it  is 
only  just  to  his  memory  to  note  that  he  was,  so  far 
as  I  am  aware,  the  first  wholly  courageous  soul  in 
America,  the  first  with  full  vision." 

There  is  no  "full  vision"  in  this  darkened  world. 
Dr.  White  would  have  died  more  serenely  had  he 
known  what  no  one  could  know,  that  the  soul  of 
the  nation,  seemingly  inert  under  provocation,  was 
slowly  hardening  itself  to  meet  an  incredible  situa- 
tion. It  was  ready  for  the  fight  before  the  call  came, 
and  the  glad  rush  to  the  colours  showed  how  bitter 
the  waiting  had  been.  That  we  had  no  idea  how  to 
wage  war  was  natural  enough;  we  had  to  learn,  as 
Britain  learned,  taught  by  our  own  blunders.  But 


274  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

through  the  unutterable  confusion  of  those  first 
months  there  was  no  faltering  of  the  spirit.  The 
sense  of  relief  was  too  profound,  the  escape  from  the 
pit  was  too  blessed.  Alas,  and  alas,  for  the  brave  and 
honest  men  who  died  before  the  day  of  deliverance. 

It  was  a  shadow  of  heroic  grief  resting  upon  the 
close  of  a  life  which  had  been  happy  and  prosperous, 
dignified  by  achievement,  crowned  by  success.  Dr. 
White  had  risen  to  eminence  in  his  profession.  He 
had  held  for  twelve  years  the  John  Rhea  Barton 
Chair  of  Surgery,  in  the  University  of  Pennsylva- 
nia. He  had  performed  many  delicate  and  dangerous 
operations,  and  his  patients  had  survived  to  call  him 
blessed.  He  had  made  important  contributions  to 
the  literature  of  surgery.  He  was  an  authority  in  his 
chosen  field.  His  enthusiasm  for  athletics  triumphed 
over  the  prejudice  of  teachers,  and  the  indifference 
of  the  public.  He  was  a  pioneer  in  this  great  move- 
ment which  has  revolutionized  and  reformed  student 
life.  The  University  Gymnasium  stands  as  a  per- 
manent monument  of  his  wisdom  and  devotion,  of 
his  generous  sympathy  with  youth,  and  his  healthy 
understanding  of  what  it  means  to  be  young. 

He  was  girt  by  inflexible  limitations.  There  are  pro- 
found emotions  which  have  moved  the  world,  and 
there  are  delicate  nuances  which  define  areas  of 
thought  and  taste,  to  which  he  held  no  clue.  But  the 
essentials  of  manhood  —  the  things  without  which 


THE  END  275 

there  is  no  man  —  were  all  his.  He  was  brave,  truth- 
ful, sincere,  loyal  to  his  friends  and  to  his  country, 
and  pitiful  to  the  suffering.  His  personal  feelings,  his 
likings  and  animosities,  were  very  strong. 

"A  hedge  around  his  friends, 
A  hackle  to  his  foes." 

Perhaps  the  number  of  foes  was  increased  by  the 
fact  that  he  never  struck  in  the  dark,  no  matter  how 
easy  the  chance;  but  waged  an  open  warfare,  pre- 
senting himself  as  a  shining  target  for  missiles.  On 
the  other  hand,  his  friends  loved  him  heartily  and 
tenaciously;  his  patients  knew  his  kindness  and  his 
worth;  nurses  and  internes  in  the  hospital  were  keen 
—  for  all  his  imperiousness  —  to  work  under  him; 
and  close  professional  associates,  like  Dr.  Alfred 
Wood,  gave  him  unstinted  devotion. 

Above  and  beyond  all  other  qualities  must  be 
reckoned  his  courageous  acceptance  and  enjoyment 
of  life.  He  feared  it  as  little  as  he  feared  death.  He 
never  held  back  his  hand  from  its  favours  because 
they  carry  danger  in  their  wake.  He  never  inquired 
too  curiously  if  the  game  were  worth  the  candle.  He 
took  royally  what  was  his,  and  paid  the  price  in  full. 
There  is  a  matchless  sentence  of  Mr.  Chesterton's 
which  describes,  as  no  words  of  mine  can  ever  de- 
scribe, this  sane  and  valorous  attitude:  "The  truest 
kinship  with  humanity  lies  in  doing  as  humanity  has 
always  done,  accepting  with  sportsmanlike  relish  the 


276  J.  WILLIAM  WHITE,  M.D. 

estate  to  which  we  are  called,  the  star  of  our  happi- 
ness, and  the  fortunes  of  the  land  of  our  birth." 

These  gifts  Dr.  White  took  unshrinkingly  from  the 
hand  of  fate,  and  of  them  he  built  the  strong  and 
splendid  fabric  of  his  life. 


THE  END 

I 


INDEX 


INDEX 


Abbey,  Edwin  Austin,  73, 107,  108, 

109,  148,  165,  166,  168,  184,  185, 

186,  195 
Abbey,  Mary  Gertrude  Mead,  195, 

196 

Adalbert,  Prince,  206,  207 
Adams,  Charles  Francis,  175 
Adams,  Robert,  42,  45,  46 
Agassiz,  Elizabeth  Cabot  Gary,  10, 

17,24 
Agassiz,  Jean  Louis  Rodolphe,  8, 

13,  14,  17,  23,  24 
Agnew,  Dr.  David  Hayes,  39,  40, 

41,  56,  64,  65,  71,  88,  189,  204 
Albert,  Heinrich  Friedrich,  232 
Alexandra,  Queen,  108 
Ashbridge,  Dr.  R.  William,  42 
Asquith,    Emma    Alice    Margaret 

Tennant,  240,  266 
Asquith,  Hon.  Herbert  Henry,  240 
Audubon,  John  James,  11 
Austen,  Jane,  120 

Baldwin,  Edward,  33 
Barbauld,  Anna  Letitia,  3 
Bartholow,  Dr.  Roberts,  66 
Beck,  James  Montgomery,  231,  273 
Bell,  John,  75 
Bergmann,  Dr.  von,  56 
Bernhard,  Dr.,  205 
Bernstorff,  Johann  Heinrich,  Count 

von,  193,  227,  258 
Biddle,  Hon.  Craig,  187 
Biddle,  Katharine,  188 
Birrell,  Rt.  Hon.  Augustine,  44 
Bodley,  Dr.  Rachel  L.,  40 
Borden,  Sir  Robert  Laird,  252 
Brown,  Benjamin  H.,  52 
Brownell,  William  Crary,  53,  197 
Browning,  Robert,  22 


Buller,  Gen.  Rt.  Hon.  Sir  Redvers 

Henry,  250 
Byron,  George  Gordon,  Lord,  93 

Caesar,  93 

Carlyle,  256 

Carnett,  Dr.  J.  B.,  270,  271 

Cassidy,  Michael,  32 

Cato,  93 

Caudron,  M.,  245 

Chambers,  James  S.,  40 

Chapman,  John  Jay,  234 

Chesterton,  Gilbert  Keith,  275 

Cicero,  93 

Clark,  Dr.  John  G.,  181 

Cleeman,  Richard  A.,  68 

Clement  XIII,  Pope,  154 

Cret,  Paul,  209 

Crile,  Dr.  George  W.,  236 

Cross,  J.  W.,  185 

Daly,  Charles,  98 

Darwin,  Charles  Robert,  18 

Davidson,  Most  Rev.  Randall 
Thomas,  Archbishop  of  Canter- 
bury, 249 

Davies,  Hubert  Henry,  242 

Delaune,  Gideon,  163 

Delm6-Radcliffe,Brig.-Gen.  Charles, 
114,  115 

Delme-Radcliffe,  Enid  Margery, 
103,  115 

Dernburg,  Dr.  Bernhard,  231,  232 

Dickens,  Charles,  93 

Disfurth,  General  von,  234 

Drexel,  Anthony,  212 

Du  Cane,  Col.  Sir  Edmund,  69 

Dumba,  Dr.  Constantin  Theodor, 
258 

Dunne,  Peter  Finley,  203 


280 


INDEX 


Eakins,  Thomas.  40,  113 

Edward  VII.  King,  99,  108,  151, 

184,  193,  250 

Eliot,  Dr.  Charles  William,  91 
Eliot,  George,  185 

Fagon,  Gui  Crescent,  54 

Fisher,  Alice,  48,  49,  50 

Fitler,  Mayor,  67 

Foote,  Samuel,  44 

Ford,  Henry,  237 

Franklin,  Benjamin,  71,  80,  81 

Frazier,  Dr.  Charles  H..  140,  181 

Fuller,  Thomas,  169 

Furness,  Horace  Howard,  144,  149, 

158,  159,  190 
Furness,  Dr.  William  H.,  237 

Gaekwar  of  Baroda,  214,  215 
Garretson,  Dr.  James  E.,  66 
George  V,  King,  109,  215,  233 
Gibbon,  Edward,  53,  93 
Gilbert,  Sir  William  S.,  94 
Gladstone,  William  Ewart,  93 
Goethe,  Johann  Wolfgang  von,  93 
Goodell,  Dr.  William,  71 
Guiteras,  Dr.  John,  70 

Halevy,  Daniel,  270 

Hals,  Frans,  111 

Hardy,  Thomas,  164 

Harrison,  Alfred,  57 

Harrison,  Charles  Custis,  117,  123, 

193 

Harte,  Francis  Bret,  77 
Havemeyer,  Theodore,  75 
Hawthorne,  Nathaniel,  53 
Hays,  Dr.,  249 
Heinemann,  Dr.,  130,  132 
Held,  Anna,  244 

Henderson,  Lt.  Gen.  Sir  David,  240 
Hill,  Dr.  Thomas,  8,  10,  14,  15,  24 
Holland,  Dr.  J.  W.,  66 
Holland,  Hon.  Sydney,  99 
Holmes,  Oliver  Wendell,  22,  69 
Holt,  Sir  Herbert  S.,  252 
Hope,  Anthony,  240 


Homer,  Edith,  49 
Howell,  James,  53 
Hughes,  Gen.  Sir  Sam,  252 
Hutchinson,    Dr.    James   P.,  236, 
239 

Imadate,  Tosui,  220 
Irvine,  Major,  247 
Ivens,  Marion  L.,  141 

James  I,  King,  163 

James,  Henry,  118,  119,  120,  129, 
133,  144,  146,  151,  155,  161,  163, 
169,  180,  184,  186,  195,  197,  202, 
207,  222,  223,  234.  240,  244,  250, 
251,  257,  265,  266,  267,  268 

James,  William,  184 

Johnson,  John  G.,  182,  183. 

Johnson,  Capt.  Philip  C.,  24 

Johnson,  Samuel,  44,  169 

Jordan,  David  Starr,  269 

Joseph,  Sister  Mary,  142 

Jusserand,  Jean  Adrien  Aubin  Jules, 
228,  232 

Kant,  Immanuel,  93 

Kauffmann,  Maria  Angelica,  163 

Keen.  Dr.  William  Williams,  71, 181 

Kempis,  Thomas  a,  58 

Keogh,  Sur.-Gen.  Sir  Alfred,  251 

Kernochan,  James,  75 

King,  Mayor,  50 

Kipling,  J.  Rudyard,  192 

Kirk,  John  Foster,  133 

Kitchener,  Horatio   Herbert,  Earl 

Kitchener  of  Khartoum,  196 
Koch,  Dr.  Robert,  69 
Kuhn,  Hartman  C.,  55 

Laking,  Sir  Francis  Henry,  108, 163 

Lambert,  John,  113 

Lane,  Sir  Hugh,  235 

Larrey,  Jean  Dominique,  Baron,  39 

Lawson,  Thomas  William,  31 

Lee,  Richard,  "Beaver  Dick,"  62, 

63 
Lee,  Sir  Sidney,  240,  251 


INDEX 


281 


Lesley,  Station-Master,  San  Pablo, 

23 

Lippincott,  Horace,  264 
Lister,  Joseph,  Lord,  53, 55,  57, 144 
Littre,  Maximilien  Paul  Emile,  93 
Long,  Dr.  Crawford  Williamson,200 
Louis  XIV,  King,  54 
Luther,  Martin,  255 

Macaulay,  Thomas  Babington,  5, 

22 

McCracken,  Dr.  Joseph,  220 
McKenzie,  Dr.  R.  Tait,  117,  118, 

200 

McLean,  Billy,  83,  121,  122 
McMurtrie,  Richard,  68 
McNally,  Peter,  74 
Mahmoud,  dragoman,  213 
Mahomet,  157 

Makins,  Col.  Sir  George,  246,  247 
Maris,  John  M.,  30 
Marshall,  Dr.  Clara,  66 
Martin,  Anna  Withers,  181 
Martin,  Dr.  Edward,  88,  136,  140, 

147,  167,  181,  182,  189,  222,  233 
Martin,  Edward  Sandford,  259,  260 
Mary,  Queen  of  England,  215 
Masefield,  John,  82 
Max  MUller,  Wanda  Maria,  229 
Mayo,  Dr.  William  J.,  139,  141, 142 
Meynell,  Alice,  116 
Mitchell,  Dr.  John  Kearsley,  264 
Mitchell,  Dr.  S.  Weir,  92,  113,  161, 

219 

Montaigne,  Michel  Eyquem  de,  184 
Montgomery,  Col.  Robert,  263 
Mordkin,  Michael,  185 
More,  Hannah,  168 
Morris,    Effingham    B.,   104,   166, 

173,  176,  177,  202,  240,  263,  270 
Morris,  Harrison  S.,  131 
Morton,  Mary  F.,  119,  120,  121 
Moynihan,    Sir    Berkeley    George 

Andrew,  196 
Munyon,  James  M.,  178 
Murillo,  Bartolome  Esteban,  72 
Musser,  Dr.  John  Herr,  70 


Napoleon  Bonaparte,  215 
Nearing,  Scott,  255,  256,  257 

Oelrichs,  Charles,  74 

Orthwein,  W.  J.,  106,  107,  116,  171, 

206 
Osier,  Grace   Revere,    Lady,  229, 

266 
Osier,   Sir   William,  104,  126,  131, 

132,  133,  136,  162,  168,  195,  196, 

228,  229,  250,  265,  266 

Page,  S.  David,  52 
Page,  William  Bird,  52 
Paine,  John,  106,  107,  116,  171 
Pappenheim,    Maximilian,    Count 

von,  55 

Paul,  Oglesby,  209 
Pavlova,  Anna,  185 
Peirce,  Benjamin,  7 
Penn,  William,  94,  166 
Pennypacker,    Samuel    Whitaker, 

233 

Penrose,  Boies,  2d,  177,  178 
Penrose,  Dr.  Charles  Bingham,  59, 

61,  167,  177 

Penrose,  Katharine  Drexel,  61 
Pepper,  George  Wharton,  75,  199 
Pepper,  Dr.  William,  64,  65,  70, 189 
Peter  the  Great,  6 
Phelps,  William  Lyon,  83 
Pitkin,  Dr.,  25,  26 
Pius  X,  Pope,  142 
Potter,  Arthur,  265 
Pourtales,  Count  Francois  de,  8 

Ralston,  Robert,  74 

Rea,  Samuel,  271 

Roberts,  Frederick  Sleigh  Roberts, 

Lord,  196 

Roberts,  Rev.  William  Henry,  193 
Robins,  Marie  Ringold,  95 
Robins,    Thomas,  36,  91,  99,  123, 
124,  125,  132,  134,  135,  136,  137, 
142,  148,  152,  161,  166,  167,  170, 
174,  193,  201,  202,  204,  210,  235, 
243,  255,  272 


282 


INDEX 


Roosevelt,  Theodore,  5,  97,  98,  99, 
123.  124,  174,  175,  176,  201,  202, 
203,  204,  215,  245,  258,  259,  262, 
263,  266 

Root,  Elihu,  183 

Rush,  Benjamin,  2 

Salisbury,  Robert  Arthur  Talbot 
Gascoyne  Cecil,  Marquis  of,  250 

Samson,  93 

Sargent,  Emily,  266 

Sargent,  John  Singer,  72,  73,  109, 
113,  132,  144,  152,  162,  168,  169, 
178,  179,  180,  184,  186,  196,  202, 
210,  222,  223,  234,  235,  240,  251, 
265 

Scott,  Sir  Walter,  64,  93 

Selkirk,  Alexander,  19 

Shaftesbury,  Anthony  Ashley 
Cooper,  Earl  of,  226 

Silly,  General,  39 

Simpson,  Sir  James,  200,  201 

Sims,  John  Clark,  100 

Siter,  Mrs.  Edward,  209 

Smith,  Edgar  Fahs,  193,  208,  265, 
268,  271 

Smith,  Edward  B.,  175,  242,  253 

Smith,  Marian  E.,  261 

Smith,  Rev.  William,  149,  150 

Socrates,  92 

Stanford,  Leland,  19 

Steindachner,  Dr.  Franz,  24 

Stengel,  Dr.  Alfred,  125,  140,  181, 
272 

Sternburg,  Baron  von,  123 

Stevenson,  Sara  Yorke,  94 

Stockton,  Mary.  1 

Stockton,  Richard,  1 

Sydenham,  George  Sydenham 
Clarke,  Lord,  257,  265 

Taft,  William  Howard,  174,  202 
Tennyson,  Alfred,  Lord,  92 
Thackeray,  William  Makepeace,  92 
Thayer,  William  Roscoe,  231 
Thompson,  Capt.  R.  C.,  247 
Townsend,  Charles  H.,  42 


Townsend,  Edward,  32 

Treves,  Annie  Mason,  Lady,  102, 
115,  164 

Treves,  Sir  Frederick,  53,  55,  58, 
59,  76,  77,  81,  82,  99,  101,  102, 
103,  107,  108,  114,  115,  134,  140, 
144,  148,  150,  161,  163,  164,  168, 
233,  242,  265 

Tyson,  Dr.  James,  70 

Unwin,  Fisher,  240 

Van  Dyke,  Henry,  91 

Van  Valkenburg,  Edward,  203 

Vaux,  Richard,  30 

Velasquez,    Diego    Rodriguez    de 

Silva  Y.,  Ill 
Verne,  Jules,  12 

Waller,  Edmund,  89 
Walpole,  Horace,  97 
Washington,  George,  123 
Weightman,  William,  117 
Wells,  Herbert  George,  240 
Weston,  Edward  Payson,  172 
Wharton,  Edith,  98,  244 
Wharton,  Dr.  H.  R.,  68 
Whistler,  James  McNeill,  195 
White,  Henry,  1 

White,  Dr.  James  William,  1,  67 
White,  Katherine  E.,  85,  187,  188 
White,  Letitia,  52,  53,  58,  59,  61, 
72,  81,  83, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 
111,  113,  116,  119,  125,  127,  128, 
129,  139,  147,  148,  153,  155,  156, 
164,  168,  171,  172,  177,  180,  187, 
194,  206,  210,  211,  212,  214,  224, 
238,  240,  251,  253,  262 
White,  Louis,  19,  20 
White,  Mary   A.  McClaranan,  2, 

3.4 

White,  Samuel  S.,  272 
White,  Samuel  S.,  Senior,  39 
White,    Samuel    S.,   Junior,    143, 

272 

Whitney,  Caspar,  75 
Wilhelm  (Friedrich  Wilhelm  Victor 


INDEX 


283 


Albrecht),  German  Emperor,  123, 

193,  206,  227,  231 
Wilson,  Alan,  170 
Wilson,  Thomas  Woodrow,  201 
Wister,  Owen,  113,  175,  201 
Wood,  Alexander,  42 


Wood,  Dr.  Alfred  C.f  139, 140, 141, 

272,  275 

Wood,  Dr.  Horatio  C.,  7,  71 
Wordsworth,  William,  93 

Young,  Brigham,  27 


CAMBRIDGE  .  MASSACHUSETTS 
U   .   S   .  A 


THE  LIBRARY 
UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 

Santa  Barbara 


THIS  BOOK  IS  DUE  ON  THE  LAST  DATE 
STAMPED  BELOW. 


Series  9482 


A     000  590  044 


